As I've stated before on these death and religion threads, if truth=nihilism, then whatever is utilitarian is the only "truth" that matters. Why would it not be "reasonable" to lie to children in this manner if it has utilitarian benefits for the children involved?
Ok, I used the wrong word here. What I meant and really should have said is that I do not think it is
necessary. Not even for utilitarian benefit. I really don't know what the hell I was thinking to use the word reasonable.
I don't think that it is necessary to lie in order to console the child. He may not like the thought at first, but I don't think we have to do the Santa Clause thing and figure out that we have been lied to as we begin to use our reason more effectiely. The main effects that I see from this are people going their entire lives accepting building belief structures that allow them to feel they can bypass this truth. I don't mean to sound harsh in saying these things, but as someone who suspends judgment before evidence is presented, the fact that there are so many people that strongly believe that they will continue to live even when they are dead appears to me to border on "mass delusion" and needs to be addressed.
Then you would say as utilitarian ethic, it is not anyone's place to pull the rug out from under someone who did believe this, if it makes them feel better. It may or may not be conducive to long term happiness - I don't really know. But I enjoy the fact that I'm going to die when I compare it to the vexing thought of living
forever, good, bad, or neutral. Many people will surely disagree with me on this point, and it is only my personal opinion. I think that it is no different than accepting that you probably won't grow up to be a billionaire, even if you really want that to be your future. I don't think it's harmful, and I'm not sure that a bunch of people living their daily lives thinking that one day they will be billionaires would be such a great thing either. If you accept that that is a highly unlikely outcome, you see that being modestly wealthy is probably good enough. The likely state of things is not awful. That we die is not so bad. We have a bias toward believing consciousness to be more important that other aspects of the universe, but when you realize that this is going to be the case for any reasonable, sentient being, it just sort of makes sense that life begins and ends like everything else. Nobody shivers in horror when they consider the 19th century and earlier just because they were not there to experience it. It wasn't scary when we didn't exist then, and it won't be scary when we don't exist later.
So in short, I do not believe the lie to be useful even from a utilitarian standpoint.
I am going to try to multiquote now.