The journal became engaged in a controversy when it published three articles on Black Lives Matter, each written by white academics and previously presented at a conference on that subject.

[1] The controversy began when Yale professor Christopher Lebron published an "open letter" criticizing the journal for not having included "philosophers of color" in the symposium.

The conference organizers pointed out that they had invited philosophers of color to contribute to the symposium but that none had chosen to.

[5] In April 2023, publisher Wiley-Blackwell fired Robert Goodin as editor of the journal, citing problems of "communication".

In response, the associate editors Sally Haslanger, Philip Pettit, Anne Phillips, and Amia Srinivasan, and editorial board members Kwame Anthony Appiah, Jane Mansbridge, Jeff McMahan, and Anna Stilz resigned from their positions at the journal in protest to Goodin's removal as editor.