Ethics without Eternity

Abstract

For over two thousand years, ethical systems in the West have relied on post-mortem rewards and punishments. Plato separated hell, purgatory and paradise into geographical ‘regions’ and articulated concrete steps of bodily punishment after death. He did this specifically to save the state the need physically to coerce people: ‘hell and heaven were alternatives to police, prisons, torture chambers and concentration camps on earth’ (Anthony, 1973, p. 121; see also Arendt, 1961, pp. 111, 130).

Modern ethical systems distrust a system of celestial incentives and the implicit self-interest which such a system encourages.

(Ulrich Simon, ‘Heaven’, in Macquarrie and Childress, A New Dictionary of Christian Ethics, 1986)

‘I don’t see the point of religion if there’s no heaven’, said Ursula. ‘I mean, why be good, if you’re not going to be rewarded for it?’

(David Lodge, Paradise News, 1992, p. 257)