Philosophical argument alone cannot produce widespread environmental attitudes

Evidence

Gratitude to nature is not just a matter of philosophy, nor is philosophy, at the end of the day, the only or even major vehicle for the construction of an attitude that is integral to pervasive social conduct. … In other words, since philosophy, especially in modernity, can never amount to popular, grass-roots social norms and values, there remains a significant gap between ideas and intellectual discourse, on the one hand, and practical ethics, on the other. … As the Muslim moral philosopher Taha Abdurrahman has argued, such gaps are endemic to liberal modernity, giving it the characteristic of a “civilization of speech,” a notion dubbed more diplomatically by Alasdair MacIntyre liberalism’s interminable disagreement. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 495

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Abdurrahman’s ‘civilization of speech’ concept — the gap endemic to liberal modernity between intellectual discourse and practical ethics.
• XREF: Ties to MacIntyre’s ‘interminable disagreement’ — the liberal inability to resolve moral questions through argument; connects to the broader critique of Enlightenment morality Hallaq develops.