What you propose is very reasonable, of course, since when we believe in a theory T, then it is natural for us also to believe that T is consistent. And the axioms that you propose to add to ZFC formalize this process. The (philosophical) question here is, does this process somehow find a completion?
(Let me quibble with your remark that we can formalize ZFCα for any ordinal α. We need that the ordinal α is somehow representable in the theory in order for the assertion Con(ZFCα) to be expressible. Of course, in a countable language, we have only countably many statements, and so we must eventually run out of representable ordinals.)
The answer is that your axioms are the pre-beginnings of the large cardinal hierarchy, as hinted at by Kristal Cantwell and Dorais. If there is a (strongly) inaccessible cardinal κ, then Vκ is a model of ZFC, and so your theory ZFC1 holds.
But I claim much more, and from a weaker hypothesis. One doesn't need an inaccessible cardinal even to know that all the expressible ZFCα are consistent.
I claim that if there is an ω model of ZFC, then all the expressible ZFCα are true and consistent.
To see this, suppose that M is an ω model of ZFC. This means that M has the standard natural numbers. From this, it follows that the ordinals of M are well-founded for some distance above ω, but may become ill-founded much higher up. Since M has the same natural numbers as we do in the meta-theory, it follows that M has exactly the same formulas in the language of set theory and, more importantly, exactly the same proofs. Thus, for any theory T that exists in M, it will be consistent in M if and only if it is consistent.
This is enough to perform an interesting ramping-up argument. Namely, since M is a model of ZFC, it follows that ZFC is consistent for us, and so M agrees, and so M is a model of ZFC+Con(ZFC), which is to say, of ZFC1. Thus, ZFC1 is consistent, and so M agrees that ZFC1 is consistent, and so M is a model of ZFC2. Thus, ZFC2 is consistent, and so M agrees, and so ZFC3 is consistent, and so on. Do you see how it works? If ZFCα is consistent, then M will agree (if α is in M), and so ZFCα+1 is also consistent. (And limit stages are basically free, since proofs are finite.)
So the scheme of theories ZFCα forms a hierarchy of consistency strength that sits very low below the beginning of the large cardinal hierarchy. I think much of the sense of your question is this:
- We know by the Incompleteness theorem that no theory can prove its own consistency, and so we want to consider theories that transcend this consistency in the way you describe.
And this is exactly what the large cardinal hierarchy provides. Each level of the large cardinal hierarchy implies the consistency of the lower levels, and the consistency of the consistency and so on, iterating in the style of your questions. But the large cardinals are able to jump higher than these small steps of consistency, by finding natural axioms that imply the consistency of all iterations of the consistency process that you describe for the lower levels.