Hi, I think the main challenge in this request has to do with the length parameter. It’s just far less common to find long-form essays for general audiences than shorter op-eds. Your casual reader will take the time to read 500-1,200 words, but rarely takes the time for 2,500 to 3,000. You can find those, but they’re generally magazine pieces, like pieces in the Atlantic, the New Republic, etc. Some philosophers write for those, but just by the fact of the far smaller number of those than newspapers, you’ll find fewer of them. One exception might be blogposts, though, but even those, I suspect, reach larger audiences more often because in part of their brevity.

All of that said, there was a pretty striking piece of intellectual history and history of philosophy in psychologist Alison Gopni’s latest Atlantic Piece, “How an 18th-Century Philosopher Helped Solve My Midlife Crisis,” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/how-david-hume-helped-me-solve-my-midlife-crisis/403195/. I’d call the piece either social philosophy or philosophy of psychology wrapped up in a story about an investigation into the history of philosophy.

If shorter pieces qualify for Maguire’s aims, he should check out Bertha Manninen (https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/968301) in Psychology Today (on parenthood, abortion, and philosophical psych): https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-birth-wisdom and on Huffington Post (recent, more to come): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bertha-alvarez-manninen/an-open-letter-to-marco-r_b_8055884.html.

Also, lots of public philosophy is going on via video and podcasts, especially the latter. A person to check out is Dr. Tommy Curry of Texas A&M (http://philosophy.tamu.edu/html/bio-Curry.html), who is a frequent guest on the Rob Redding Show. Redding is big in Atlanta, but now via the Web, not only there. Curry’s been prolific in his contributions both with Redding and with other outlets. His work covers a number of areas, but one piece that isn’t political philosophy or moral philosophy, except maybe the latter in a broad sense, is his critique of Beyonce as a role model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkHDiP8wwIQ.

I love to write and philosophers prioritize the written word. As a mentor has directed me, however, it’s important to look to radio and especially television. If you want public engagement and impact, he said, “some people read the paper. Many more people watch television.” New media are crucial for the today’s phase of public philosophy.

Good luck, Barry! This is important work! Be in touch if I can be of any help or support.

P.S./F.Y.I. My own love of public philosophy motivated a recent newspaper piece: http://etw.li/1Pgc9ZI, my latest book: http://etw.li/1UVnp16, and my podcast, Philosophy Bakes Bread: http://etw.li/1QMWD7X.

Do videos count?

This is one of our most popular videos at Wireless Philosophy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYAoiLhOuao

Some philosophers of biology have spent considerable effort writing for the public about evolution and creationism. Michael Ruse and Elliot Sober would be two of the most important.

I’m a dork for self-nominating, but this one, written for public policy activists and (secondarily) lawyers, fits the bill: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/JLPP/upload/Newhouse-final.pdf

Jumping off of David Wallace’s comment, it seems like more papers could be found with a slightly altered understanding of ‘public philosophy’. I tend to think that a good way to characterize ‘public philosophy’ is in terms of something like ‘anything with significant philosophical content or method written by someone with significant philosophical training primarily with non-philosophers in mind’. The thought here is that public philosophy isn’t just philosophical work done with those outside of the academy as intended audience, but can also be philosophical work done with those outside of the academy guiding our writing in any number of ways. One might allow those outside of the academy to guide our thinking by having the goal be improvement of the material situation for such folks, by having our methods/assumptions be constrained by that which those outside of the academy could be brought to accept with a short conversation, etc.

I find the “not primarily moral or political philosophy” restriction deeply troubling. Some of us think that all philosophy has a moral and political dimension. So this is a call for public philosophy by those who are apolitical. And yet it adds to that a desire for philosophy by underrepresented groups, who are least likely to share this apolitical conception of philosophy.