Since it's a meta-discipline (i.e. thinking about thinking) philosophy has been pooh-poohed and vilified since ancient times; or philosophers have been elevated

Since it's a meta-discipline (i.e. thinking about thinking) philosophy has been pooh-poohed and vilified since ancient times; or philosophers have been elevated to god-like stature. The danger in the current times, I think, is that they are fast disappearing from the public consciousness, eliciting neither of these strong responses that they did in the past. This is too bad since, like it or not, we need them more than ever (or as much as always, depending on your view about the progress or lack thereof of the world): "... if I say I would never kill an innocent person, does that mean that I wouldn’t order the bombing of an enemy position if it might kill some civilians? Does a commitment to democratic elections require one to accept a fair election that puts an anti-democratic party into power? Answering such questions requires careful conceptual distinctions, for example, between direct and indirect results of actions, or between a morality of intrinsically wrong actions and a morality of consequences." Those are not abstractions but common questions that we are facing today (e.g. using UAVs in Afghanistan or the rise of Islam in Egyptian elections). Add to these the important questions that are perennial election debates in the US: gay marriage (check how your argument fares against e.g, polygamy), abortion rights, limits to right of speech (e.g. the very recent ruling in personal data encryption), stem cell research, affirmative action, and so forth.