I don't know if this is Singer's view or not. I just want to respond to the suggestion that the view "shows a progression of the pro-choice stance on abortion extending beyond the womb." Do not buy the facile and cynical "slippery slope" argument advanced by some unscrupulous people that holds that any principle that justifies abortion in any circumstances will lead inexorably to a validation of heinous practices like murder of unwanted children or elderly adults. The term "pro-choice" refers to a particular political position: it is the position that the decision whether to continue a pregnancy should be made the pregnant person, not the government. People who are pro-choice do not necessarily agree on the morality of abortion -- they do not all agree on the conditions in which abortion is morally permissible, and they may not even agree that abortion is ever morally permissible. (Many members of the organization Catholics for Free Choice believe on theological grounds that abortion...

Nobody owns the word "philosopher." It's used in many different ways, including "someone who ponders important, fundamental questions" and "someone who claims to ponder important, fundamental questions, but actually just screws around." In the use most common among academics, "philosopher" means someone who practices seriously the discipline of philosophy, whether published or unpublished, employed or unemployed. Merely having an opinion doesn't qualify you.

"We" can call anyone we like a "philosopher". No one owns the term. The term "philosophy" has a broad meaning in public discourse -- it means something like "a systematic consideration of fundamental questions about meaning and existence." By that definition, Baudrillard (who I have never read) would certainly count as a philosopher. And I don't think his qualifying by that definition means that philosophy is "just a game." Now there's a reason why I haven't read Baudrillard that has to do with the academic practice of philosophy. I grew up in what's called the "analytic tradition" -- an approach to philosophy that takes analysis and rigorous argumentation as methodological norms, and that often focuses on the language in which philosophical questions are expressed. There are other traditions; the other main tradition descended from early modern European philosophy beside analytic philosophy is called the "continental tradition." Jean Baudrillard works in this tradition. People in the...