Volume 35, Issue 1, January 2019
Toby Eugene Bollig
Pages 217-227
Desire Satisfactionism and Not-So-Satisfying Deserts
The Problem of Hell
This paper appeals to certain popular doctrines about human welfare and morality to offer a new response to the problem of hell. In particular, I contend that the combination of desire satisfactionism, a subjective theory about welfare, with an objective theory of morality leads to a surprisingly intuitive and compelling argument for the consistency of the post-mortem punishment of people in hell with the existence of an omniperfect God. In fact, under these conditions, the existence of such a divine being may actually require that there be at least some type of hell/post-mortem punishment. Finally, I suggest that positing the existence of hell can strengthen desire satisfactionism against an objection tied to base or immoral desires.