Private language, moral rules and Nietzsche
Acting as just believing something as compared to genuine cases of believing in something i assume. It is not the weird behaviorist way but the weird "information universe" way of looking a things. Anything that can be observed or in any other way deduced through any information gathering method, means or device is simply information identified.
There is no reason a person might not have an internal language that the individual uses to manage and process information. Of course externalizing would or does require translation to a.language/format that can be understood by the target audience.
When a person adopts any set of internal values what they are actually doing is determining a structure for identifying and using information (especially how to use this information)- and particularly information that fits within the structure and confines of that determining value set. Morals as being referred to in this discussion are no more then a variation on the same basic concept, and can be created or adopted through any number of information gathering means...IE internalizing from information received directly like reading or information received that initiates a response from the earlier emotional information management system, among many others. The universe does not discriminate between "good or bad, right or wrong information" it is just information. Conscious beings however tend to seek out information in a way and that fits in or supports the ways and means of information gathering that has been successful to that point in time. Often expressed as belief systems. Information received or being received by genetic information sources all the way to the confines of a morality structure influence this, as well as continuing feedback from the universe including the feedback of other conscious beings. Even the scientific method is an example of this...
information gathering through the use of the scientific method has been very successful at finding or determining and therefore predicting to a very high degree information relating to our universe. It is still limiting in that it only accepts information that fits within its structure, confines and format. Does the scientist truly believe in the scientific method or does he just portray it?
My point is that it does not matter, and that as we all inhabit our own separate realities, impossible to determine anyway. What does matter is the behaviors, methods, even the info being search/offered are successful and can be provided in a format acceptable to the society the person is a part of.
So the second part as in understand your post is that a person professing an adherence to a set of morals, religion, ect. that internally the person does not accept itself. This presumably then allows the person to access information in a way that otherwise would be confined or not be acceptable or could cause a threat that person. Since i believe a primary function of life is to find and use information, the mere threat of a loss/constriction of information is a powerful inducement to externalize the behaviors most conducive for that to not occur. It is impossible to know what exactly Galileo believed or what his internal information management tools were or what role symbolic interactionism could have played out in his survival. What is clear is that the information he was trying to communicate threatened his existence and threatened his ability to continue to gather/manage information in a way that had been successful for him to that point. Regardless of his internal belief system Galileo spent the rest of his life exhibiting the behaviors and presenting information in a format that fit the expectations and confines of the larger society he was part of. Ultimately to the detriment of the society as its own confines made it unable to readily assimilate and use the info Galileo was providing. In the end though the information Galileo was presenting changed the society.
The weird Information Universe.