Does philosophy have anything to say that is of relevance to the way non-philosophers think about the world? This question is put to a group of philosophers, and one of them, Jonathan Barnes, answers 'not very much'. This is what he says by way of explaining his answer with respect specifically to moral philosophy:
[G]lance about at our colleagues. There's Professor W, who has written some brilliant pieces on ethics: Is he more honourable in his philandering than my neighbour Bernard? And there's Professor D, the most competent logician of the age: Are his practical reasonings better regulated than those of my neighbour Brian? The answers are: No, and No. Moreover, I incline strongly to think that ethics, as it's done by philosophers, is more likely to confuse than to enlighten non-philosophers, and that logic, as it's done by logicians, tends to produce logic-choppers rather than reasoners.Hmmm... I don't know Jonathan Barnes; but one thing I do know is that should I ever need a philosopher to speak up for me in some matter, I won't now be approaching him first. That Professor W is a philosopher and a philanderer, while the non-philosopher Bernard is faithful to his spouse, only shows that personal virtue doesn't necessarily accompany intellectual learning, or analytical ability, or an understanding of the complexities of some moral issue or other. However, going out of his way to deny the use of learning, analysis and attempting to understand the contours of difficult moral issues, Barnes doesn't give the best possible advertisement for his subject.
Fortunately, Raymond Geuss, responding to the same question, makes some observations which are usefully to the point: about the internal complexity of many of the moral and political concepts in common use, and the need to attain some clarity about their different components and meanings. Unfortunately, in offering these observations, Geuss gives out the global-dinner-party view that there was nothing at all complex, unclear or requiring philosophical analysis in the arguments surrounding the Iraq war, in particular those connected with democracy. It was all just obvious (in the dinner-party direction, needless to say). Geuss thus demonstrates - what you should already know - that a philosopher can say intelligent and stupid things in the same place, and therefore you shouldn't take what a philosopher says as beyond challenge; just as you shouldn't take what anyone else says as beyond challenge.
Philosophy itself, indeed, encourages a questioning frame of mind. It should also encourage those who practise it to perceive that moral issues that divide intelligent people can have complexities to them, especially where they concern alternative courses of action that are both – or all – costly in human terms; and should encourage them, likewise, not to pretend in such circumstances that their own preferred view just stands out boldly in the facts, as if it had been written there by a Superior Hand. It should encourage these attitudes, but evidently doesn't always do so. That is not the fault, though, of philosophy, merely of the fallible humans that we all are, including even those who are philosophers.