What are your beliefs? One answer from J.M. Coetzee, Nobel novelist

Beliefs are like moods or Stimmungen in the sense that one can begin to believe X, and continue to believe X for some time, but then emerge from believing X into some other state of mind. And (the important point) one finds it as difficult to answer questions about one’s beliefs as to answer questions about one’s moods. Why do I believe X (why am I in mood X)? Why did I stop believing X (why did I emerge from mood X)? All one can say is: Today I am in mood X, but as to what mood I will be in tomorrow I cannot say. Today I believe X, but I cannot guarantee I will still believe X tomorrow. . . .
   Now I turn to your main question, which is: What are my beliefs?. . .My response to this question depends on my mood, as defined above. In my present sanguine mood my answer is yes. I believe that nature is orderly, and that, being part of nature, human beings have intuitions of order, of what a just order (a just natural order, a just social order) will feel like. I believe that non-human animals have intuitions of justice too. Furthermore, I believe that through education our inborn sense of justice can be brought to consciousness, cultivated, and fortified, helping us to distinguish (most of the time, though not always) between right and wrong.
   There you have it: the sketch of a moral philosophy with an antique metaphysical grounding.
   When I am in the opposite kind of mood, on the other hand, I believe that the whole creaky philosophical edifice I have erected for myself is nonsense, and life is nothing but the struggle of all against all.
   The fictions I have written – to conclude my response to your question – are not blocks of thought that can be articulated one with another to constitute a coherent set of beliefs. They are essays, ventures, expressions of the moods that have possessed me at successive stages of my life.

“The Summoning: An Interview with J.M. Coetzee.” Interviewer: Robert Boyers (accessed online at https://salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/481-the-summoning). The entire interview is a must-read.