"The paper points out only that all attempts to avoid contradiction in moral philosophy have failed, and points out why they have failed." They failed, precisely because differing parties, refuse to accept the same initial premises, from which all else is being derived. That is why I pointed out the problem with your definitions - they are not, and will never be, universally accepted. I do not claim to know any that will be either. The point being, they don't exist. That is the problem - the only problem.
"The free subject is a law to oneself..." I agree. But the problem remains; one person's "law" and subsequent behavior, may cause another person to become enraged, resulting in the fact that moral conundrums are being caused to appear, rather than disappear. You cannot define your way out of that problem, by simply proclaiming that "If everyone would just adopt my premises, all conundrums and conflicts would disappear", because everyone else can honestly proclaim the exact same thing. It is a peculiarity of "universal consent", that whatever is being consented to (the laws and beliefs etc.) become completely irrelevant, because "universal consent" is a sufficient condition to ensure the lack of any conflict whatsoever. If everyone really and truly believes that going around and stabbing others in the back, is a great thing to do, then no one is going to complain when they themselves get stabbed - Thank you very much! I've always wanted to be stabbed in the back! But what is the likelihood that such a premise would ever be consented to in the first place? That is what needs to be mathematically analyzed - which sets of premises, have the greatest likelihood of being not just willingly adopted, but enthusiastically adopted, by nearly every member of a society. It comes as no great surprise, that those which confer "rights" (avoidance of harm) tend to be highly preferred over those that merely confer some "benefit", because if you have no "right" to actually keep some benefit once you have received it, then it is not worth very much. If the government gives you the benefit of a life-long pension, but then promptly puts you to death, because it does not recognize your right-to-life, then any benefit being provided is going to be of little value to you.
Many philosophers, going all the way back to ancient times, such as Socrates, have pointed-out that once you accept that the "Noble man" must willing take personal responsibility for judging his own actions, then he should also willing accept whatever fate is inflicted upon him, by his chosen society, if he happens to offend it, including willingly drinking the Hemlock. The moral conflict is thus resolved, by the willing removal of the irritant (halting that program). But as Socrates himself stated, if he ever reemerges in some afterlife, he will still feel free to remain an irritant and a law unto himself.
Personally, I am highly sympathetic to that point-of-view. But I do not see how it can ever resolve any moral conundrums here on Earth. In Plato's "Crito", Socrates explains to his friend, Crito, why he will not run-away from his pending execution, even though his escape could be easily arranged, and would even be welcomed by many of the very people that voted to convict and then execute him. He imagines "THE LAWS" come and give him a "talking to", in which they point-out that they are solely responsible for making his freely-chosen, philosophic life-style possible. So what kind of "noble man" would he be, if he now became a "fair-weather friend" and only consented to abide by THE LAWS when they favored him, but not when they favor others? A lesson being, be careful what you consent to - that is why the founding fathers of the US insisted upon a bill of rights; first agree to do no harm, then we can try to resolve the remaining issues.
But we have digressed rather far from fundamental physics. My interest in this, stems from the same source as my interest in the statement in Sabine Hossenfelder's essay, that "This is why, in physics, any mathematical theorem must be taken with a grain of salt. Any proof is only as good as its assumptions..."; The same is true of any logical argument, not just physics or morals. When people do not agree about the "self-evident truth" of the fundamental assumptions/premises underlying their views of reality, they are also not going to agree that any theorems, derived from those assumptions, have any relevance to their view of reality. In other words, the issue of whether or not an incompleteness theorem may prevent one from ever successfully deriving moral (or physical) laws, or "theories of everything", from some set of premises, is rendered moot, when people will not accept the premises themselves, even when you can derive some otherwise "beautiful" laws from them.
Rob McEachern
