First, thanks for an intelligent and thoughtful article--as always from this author.

The problem is that all beliefs actually are equal: equally removed from rationality. We can reason from any belief, but all beliefs are extra-rational. No one can explain, rationally, why one holds this belief and not that one, why one insists this belief is true but that belief is false. To make any appeal to "pragmatism" is only to defer the appeal to one belief or another: what constitutes 'the good'.

I know I am no recognized authority, but my studies have taught me that we humans must recognize mutual respect as the ethic of justice and the principle of governance for any and every society. A requirement of mutual respect does follow from a belief in moral equality and a society governed by mutual respect would have the maximum liberty that coexisting people can share simultaneously.

I have shown that a requirement of mutual respect also follows from the observation that human beings have no choice but to effect choices (which I got from Warren J. Samuels). There, mutual respect does not involve any belief: both the determiner of the ethic of justice (that observation) and the referents of justice (actions taken to bring a choice to fruition that involve other human beings) are contained within material existence. That legitimately de-legitimates going outside material existence--to any belief--to deny the applicability of that ethic to one's own actions or otherwise justify violating it.