Interesting article, I tend to agree with the way Zizek has framed it, but maybe that’s because I don’t intuitively agree with the materialist deterministic frame the author has started with. His point seems to be something like ‘how would we know if our free will were being thwarted without comparing our ability to make decisions to some extrinsic godlike position that cannot by definition be a part of deterministic reality’.

I think I understand it more as an acknowledgment of a world of being outside of subjectivity. As far as I can see a move like that is needed in order to escape utilitarianism and solipsism (D.C. Schindler writes beautifully about this and calls it “misology”).

I don’t think we can continue to deny that what humans care about is not implicitly part of all of our rational systems. I see where the concern about mysticism arises, but I also tend to think that once we enter into serious thought about these questions we are properly in mystical or religious territory and that’s ok.