[there's too much love]

(Original post by RawJoh1)
It's different because God exists in the real world, not just the ideal world (assuming Christianity is true).

I think natural law's a load of **** too.



Well, the causal story isn't quite so simple there. And there's a pretty strong case that the Church has acted hideously immorally, so I'm not so sure that this is a remotely effective reductio.

Intelligent Christians have been utilitarians, deontologists and virtue ethicists. I'd agree that it's probably better for the Christian to be a deontologist or a virtue ethicist, but it's not an open and shut case.

Not possible. Consequentialism = the right action is that which maximises the good. Deontology = there is a right action which does not maximise the good. Not compatible. The Christian could be a consequence-sensitive deontologist though, but that's not consequentialist, because consequentialism doesn't just mean that "consequences matter".

But I wouldn't say that consequentialism can fit in with Christian philosophies.
You can be Christian and ignore the general teachings laid out in the bible.

[birdsong1]

(Original post by RawJoh1)
It's different because God exists in the real world, not just the ideal world (assuming Christianity is true).

Well, that's easy. Assume that possible worlds are real, if only in the platonic sense. They're just as accessible to us as God is.

Neither is this just a random supposition no one would make in real life. The idea of an action being "good in principle", even if not "good in practice", is commonly used in decision-making and in saying something is justified or moral. This is essentially no different.

(Original post by RawJoh1)
And there's a pretty strong case that the Church has acted hideously immorally, so I'm not so sure that this is a remotely effective reductio.

Not according to their moral theory, and as such, a real-life disaster wouldn't be a moral disaster according to universalizable consequentialism either.

(Original post by RawJoh1)
Not possible. Consequentialism = the right action is that which maximises the good. Deontology = there is a right action which does not maximise the good. Not compatible.

If this is so, then the words really lose most, if not all of their descriptive power. It would be much more descriptive to consider a continuum, or even a description of how much "the good" relates to real world consequences (my type, of course, might not).