That's one of the compensations for being mediocre. One doesn't have to worry about becoming mediocre.

Less money spent on billboards that just make us feel good about ourselves and more on soup kitchens and organized visits to the sick and dying.

Philosophy addresses, in a systematic and progress-making way, questions of deep concern to everyone.

Almost everybody thinks about philosophy, even if they don't realize it's philosophy and even if they have no sense of the difficulty of the problems, the array of possible answers.

If there is such a thing as philosophical progress, then why - unlike scientific progress - is it so invisible? Philosophical progress is invisible because it is incorporated into our points of view. What was torturously secured by complex argument comes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance.

And now having a child has been taken out of the sphere of biological determinism and placed instead in the domain of intentional action. Another option to consider and decide upon. And ... not to choose is to choose.

I think one reason is that philosophers are more insecure to speak accessibly because non-philosophers are skeptical that philosophers have any special expertise. After all, all people - not just philosophers - have attitudes and points of view on various philosophical questions, and they rather resent being told that there are professionals who can think about these things better.