Trust, Trouble, and Generative Slip-Ups in Academic Philosophy

Philosophy can happen anywhere and at any time. That’s part of its appeal. Unlike many disciplines, it doesn’t require specialized equipment or exclusive access to rare materials. It can just be. While some of the richest philosophical work emerges in dialogue with others (and I think this is a prerequisite), anyone can reflect on existence, knowledge, or value with nothing more than time and curiosity. Philosophy is a truly democratic exercise.

And yet, there is an undeniable hierarchy within the discipline. While anyone can philosophize, only some can turn those reflections into published work which subsequently gets read by others. And while the advent of technologies like the printing press, the internet, and social media has expanded the boundaries of who writes and gets read, it is true that some writing, merely by virtue of its format and locale, gets more eyes on it than others. This is not necessarily how things ought to be, but it is how they are. When philosophers want to understand the current state of debate — what arguments are live, which questions remain unresolved, how the boundaries of knowledge might be pushed — they almost always turn to written texts, especially those that have passed through academic channels.

Nowhere is this more noticeable than in peer-reviewed journals, where much (but not all) of the discipline’s cutting-edge work is produced and shared. Obviously, the reliability of this body of work has always been up for debate. Questions about honesty, interpretation, and scholarly integrity are not new. Yet, with the rise of (you guessed it) generative AI, concerns about academic publishing have taken on a new urgency.

I’ve written about the problems facing academic publishing before for the Prindle Post (see The Boldt Scandal and Academic Fraud). What I’d like to look at here is something a little different, or at least, something more specific. It concerns a paper by Ognjen Arandjelović, published in the journal Bioethics, titled Against Moral Panic and Citation Fiction: A Critique of “Panem, Corticoids and Circenses” and a Proposal for Editorial Gatekeeping on Reference Integrity. What makes this piece particularly interesting is that it scrutinizes the publication process behind another article; that being Panem, Corticoids and Circenses: The Ethical Fallout of Enhanced Games, by Alexis Demas, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

At first glance, this might not sound especially interesting. Authors criticize each other’s work all the time. Indeed, it can be said to be the essence of academia. But taken together, these two articles, and an accompanying editorial, suggest something more significant: a moment of tension between two of the biggest journals within the same intellectual space. If one were inclined to speculate (which I am), Arandjelović’s piece reads almost like a direct challenge; a moment of “shots fired” across the bow of another major publication. I think it may signal a shift toward more explicit forms of inter-journal critique, particularly as academia grapples with the implications of generative AI.

Perhaps a bit of context might help. Let me set the scene.

In August 2025, the Journal of Medical Ethics published Demas’s article, which argues that the Enhanced Games — an Olympic-style competition permitting (even encouraging) performance-enhancing drugs — represent a dangerous transformation of sport. According to Demas, such games undermine ethical and health standards while harmfully redefining athletic excellence. This is a familiar line of argument, and not an especially controversial one. It’s easy to imagine, for instance, how ancient Greek virtue ethicists might respond to the idea of pharmacologically enhanced achievement instead of putting in the hard graft.

For a time, nothing seemed amiss. That changed in March 2026, when Arandjelović’s critique appeared. His response operates on two levels. First, he challenges the substance of Demas’ argument, claiming it relies on weak reasoning, exaggerated claims, and inconsistent views about risk and autonomy. That, in itself, is unremarkable as academics, and most certainly philosophers, disagree all the time.

The second line of critique, however, is far more interesting. Arandjelović argues that the article is not just flawed but unreliable, pointing to what he sees as clear signs of AI involvement: fabricated citations and references that do not support the claims they are invoked to justify. This is not a minor scholarly misstep. Passing off unsupported or entirely invented sources as legitimate evidence undermines the basic trust on which academic publishing depends. And Arandjelović does more than simply note this. He goes on to highlight why this is an important problem for the field of medical ethics (and I think this applies beyond there). As he writes:

A journal publishing a commentary with multiple false citations, and seemingly nobody noticing this — not the reviewers, not the editors, not the readers — highlights a serious problem. This is especially worrying in medical ethics, where commentary can shape public and professional perceptions quickly, and where ethics language can launder factual unreliability.

That, ultimately, is the crux of the issue. This is not merely a case of AI-assisted writing slipping through the cracks. It suggests a more systemic breakdown in the quality-control mechanisms meant to safeguard scholarly standards. The question, then, is whether this is indeed a systematic problem, and if so, how much of the system has been compromised? If one believes Udo Schuklenk’s editorial in the issue of Bioethics in which the Arandjelović article appears, while it may not be limited to just the Journal of Medical Ethics, it isn’t a factor at Bioethics, with him writing:

I’m pleased to say that, apparently unlike the BMJ group of journals, Wiley, the publisher of this journal, has in place a highly sophisticated automated reference check that is available to the editorial team. This manuscript would not have gone out for peer review if it had been submitted to Bioethics, because it would have been eliminated after the reference (and possibly the AI generated content) screening. Surprisingly, the BMJ group of journals doesn’t seem to possess this sort of capacity, or it hasn’t been deployed in this instance.

To me, that reads very much as a “shots fired” moment. Schuklenk states, in no uncertain terms, that this paper wouldn’t have been published in Bioethics. That the journal’s processes, be they automated or human, are too good to allow such a piece of work onto its pages. That Bioethics is pulling its weight in the protection of the published body of philosophical works more than the Journal of Medical Ethics is.

It is this that, to me, is notable. This isn’t just a case of criticizing the work of another academic. It’s one publication pointing directly at another and saying, “when it comes to AI, you’re falling short.” That’s new. Or at least, it’s not something which I’ve seen being done with such clarity before. That’s not to say that it hasn’t. Obviously, I’m unable to read everything, and this may not be entirely new. But, nevertheless, I think it’s something to be remarked upon. Journals are coming out swinging.

Now, what I find most interesting about all of this is that it brings into focus something philosophy tends to take for granted: trust. Not just trust in individual authors, but in the entire system that produces the work we read. Philosophy runs on a good-faith agreement: we assume citations exist, that arguments are made sincerely, and that peer review and editorial processes are doing their jobs. These assumptions sit in the background, but they make the whole thing work. When generative AI makes it easier to produce work that looks convincing without meeting those standards, then what’s at stake isn’t just a handful of questionable papers, but the conditions that allow philosophical inquiry to function at all.

We should also note the pace, or lack thereof, when it comes to philosophy’s ability to scrutinize its own institutions. We’re supposed to be good at critical thinking and scrutinization. That’s meant to be our thing. So, then, why have we been so slow to respond to the advent of generative AI? We’re quick to analyze arguments, but less inclined to question the systems that give those arguments legitimacy. What this moment does, I think, is force that question. It highlights that peer review, citation practices, and editorial judgment are not infallible and may need to adapt. That doesn’t mean abandoning new technologies or giving in to panic, but it does mean taking standards seriously; collectively, not just individually. And I know the practicalities of this are hard. I’m an editor at a journal (not one involved here), and finding reviewers is a nightmare. But it still needs to be done, and the checks still need to be made.

Ultimately, philosophy may indeed be open to anyone who considers the big questions in life, and we all do that at some point or another. But if it’s going to remain meaningful, the work that solidifies it, the work that we recommend people go and read, must be something we can trust. Without that, we’re all in trouble.