“consequentialists who believe in heaven and hell and think they have insight into how to get people into heaven would be willing to do lots of nasty things to increase the number of people who go to heaven.”
I fully agree with this (as someone who doesn’t believe in heaven and hell, but is a consequentialist), and also would point out that it’s not that different from the way many people who believe in heaven and hell already act (especially if you look at people who strongly believe in them; ignore anyone who doesn’t take their own chances of heaven/hell into account in their own decisions).
In fact I suspect that even from an atheistic, humanist viewpoint, consequentialism on this one would have been better in many historical situations than the way people acted in real life; if a heathen will go to hell but can be saved by converting them to the True Faith, then killing heathens becomes an utterly horrific act. Of course, it’s still justified if it allows you to conquer the heathens and forcibly convert them all, as is killing a few as examples if it gets the rest to convert, but that’s still better than the way many European colonizers treated native peoples in many cases.
“consequentialists who believe in heaven and hell and think they have insight into how to get people into heaven would be willing to do lots of nasty things to increase the number of people who go to heaven.”
I fully agree with this (as someone who doesn’t believe in heaven and hell, but is a consequentialist), and also would point out that it’s not that different from the way many people who believe in heaven and hell already act (especially if you look at people who strongly believe in them; ignore anyone who doesn’t take their own chances of heaven/hell into account in their own decisions).
In fact I suspect that even from an atheistic, humanist viewpoint, consequentialism on this one would have been better in many historical situations than the way people acted in real life; if a heathen will go to hell but can be saved by converting them to the True Faith, then killing heathens becomes an utterly horrific act. Of course, it’s still justified if it allows you to conquer the heathens and forcibly convert them all, as is killing a few as examples if it gets the rest to convert, but that’s still better than the way many European colonizers treated native peoples in many cases.