There is also a correspondence that I once saw online between Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner and the Lubavitcher Rebbe about putting tefillin on people in the street. Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner wrote along the lines of what I say.
I found it now here:
https://chabadlibrary.org/books/arum/mbhg/2/28.htm
I now see that he bases it on the law of one acting without meaningful awareness.

Thank you very much!

I would just note that apparently there is no connection between what you are saying and what the Rebbe says. On the face of it, the Rebbe too argues that a framework of faith is needed in order for these actions to fall under the category of commandments. Rather, the Rebbe argues that in most cases, a person who comes to put on tefillin does so because he believes in God. On the contrary, from the fact that the Rebbe argues that every Jew believes, it follows that he assumes commandments require faith, and therefore he needs to arrive at the claim that everyone believes.

It may be that there is a different dispute between the Rebbe and you (and Hutner): how much the framework of faith has to be consciously present. And even here, the dispute should be narrowed. For the Rebbe argues that the act in which a person comes to put on tefillin is done because of faith. On the contrary, to say that the act is done because of folklore—the burden of proof is on the one making that claim.

In practice, it seems that this was the Rebbe's claim to Rabbi Hutner. The comparison between a person who eats matzah while thinking the opposite is not similar to a neutral person who comes to put on tefillin. In the first case, it is clear to us that there is a flaw in his intention, whereas in the second case the reasonable presumption is that the putting on is done because of the command of faith.

So it comes out that you and the Rebbe—to everyone's surprise 🙂 … are almost in the same slot. It may be that in your case the presumption goes the other way: that as long as the person does not declare his faith, the assumption is that it is folklore. But even so, it seems there is no real principled dispute here.

If your assessment is that every person intends it as a commandment, then true, that does bring the views closer together—but in that case you have essentially emptied the dispute of content. It is true that some of those who come to put on tefillin are aware of their obligation and understand what tefillin are, but many of them are not. One can discuss that segment that does know, but regarding them it seems to me that everyone agrees there is value to the commandment.

I think the dispute between Hutner and the Rebbe is that Hutner argued one also needs to know the details of the passages, etc., whereas the Rebbe argued that it is enough to know that there is a God and that this is a commandment. In that sense, your view is actually like the Rebbe's.

There may be another dispute, namely how much one needs to be fully consciously aware that this is a commandment. Maybe the Rebbe held that a very vague level is enough, whereas you think it needs to be more conscious. But that is a dispute that is hard to define precisely, and it also seems unrelated to the dispute between the Rebbe and Rabbi Hutner.

From what I understood, according to the Rabbi, the source of obligation in the commandments is faith in Torah from Sinai, and not just in an abstract God alone (although one of your comments in this thread refers only to God). So I wanted to ask what your opinion is about a person who believes in God but not in the revelation at Sinai, rejects the historical dimension altogether (say, he believes the Torah is a human creation), but still wants to observe commandments—whether in a Leibowitzian sense, or because he thinks this is a human way of trying to draw close to God in the absence of other possibilities, or even because he wants to draw close to tradition. I realize that each case I described is different, but I would be glad if you could address, in your view, the status of each one—or your view regarding a principle that can be applied in order to decide in any given situation. Does this fall under the category of a "captured infant" or some other exempting category? Is he obligated in the commandments as usual? Do his commandments have religious significance?