Peter Singer[0] is one of the 3 editors. The editorial board, mostly moral philosophers, includes J.M. Coetzee, Jonathan Glover[1] and Jonathan Haidt[2].
[0] Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics et al.
[1] Author of many books including Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century - one of the most outstanding, horrifying, memorable books I've ever read.
[2] Author of The Happiness Hypothesis (I can't recommend it more highly), The Coddling of the American Mind etc.
Honest question ; why ? Can you develop ? I would see this as one of the most urgently needed initiative I could think of, with rampant censorship, PC and cancel culture ...
> Welcome to the website of the Journal of Controversial Ideas, the first open access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal specifically created to promote free inquiry on controversial topics.
Basically liberating science.
Edit : I see why you would say that with /s but if you tacitly support the cocktail submission, that's what I would like you to expand on ...
In the medicinal literature there is a lot of controversy over whether the first line of treatment for high blood pressure should be a ACE/ARB or a Calcium Channel Blocker.
In the astronomy literature years ago people couldn't agree if the Hubble constant was 40 or 80 the longest time. Nobody knows what that missing mass is, or if maybe you solve the equations of general relativity correctly stars just move that way.
Controversy for the sake of controversy is... CNN. On slow news days reporters wind up "becoming the news" such as
CNN is very smart in pushing fights to the point where they rarely have to fire anybody -- developing notoriety around a personality is an investment as long as you don't cross the line.
As for cancel culture, I'll say this.
People who write for the NYT editorial column don't like it because they get paid $10k to give a talk here or there so it is money out of their pocket.
Parent-of-college-student liberals seemed to like Milo Yiannopoulos at first because they liked "free speech" as a concept. Except in this case Milo feels like it is a failure to give a talk at some school and have nothing happene: really there has to be a riot and he has to get the next one "canceled" because that adds to his fame.
He burned that bridge and conservatives think he is fresh because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", he gets invited to CPAC... Then the CPAC people see one of his videos on Youtube and they use the name of the Lord in vain and hit the cancel button on Mr Y.
How about that football player Colin Kaepernick who got canceled because he took a stand?
Names have power, and a name like that is a curse that will bring trouble of some kind.
I think I get what your saying, but my understanding ( based on what I read on the website ) is that this is a genuine attempt at letting any coherent idea one can articulate and defend, be presented and discussed for its merits or lack thereof.
Not some sort of controversy hotpot like cable news or what have you. Controversy being merely a (probable) secondary effect of the legitimate endeavor.
When discussing ideas in search of the truth is controversial, you need something like that. The name of the project is merely a signal they are about what they say they are. When operating in that kind of climate, one shouldn't shy away from calling a cat a cat. I don't think this is controversy for the sake of it, just an invitation to any intellectuals that are being called controversial ( or just names ) when they shouldn't be.
[0] Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics et al.
[1] Author of many books including Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century - one of the most outstanding, horrifying, memorable books I've ever read.
[2] Author of The Happiness Hypothesis (I can't recommend it more highly), The Coddling of the American Mind etc.