All human beings have a tendency to being hypocrites, liars, thieves, knaves, scoundrels, and politicians holding double standards. It just goes with the territory.

Whether or not one can smoke pot or use hallucination-producing fungi is not an equivalent issue of whether people should be killed for committing capital crimes. The two are just not equivalent issues.

There is no solution to the problem of "right policy" in Popper's negative utilitarianism. It just moves the debate to "how are we going to define suffering and who is going to pay for it" and the left and right will not agree. ObamaCare was designed to reduce suffering and a lot of people are absolutely torqued out about it.

The left and the right are permissive about different things. They have a different set of priorities, but it quickly becomes complicated. Sometimes the left's and right's priorities result in overlap. For instance, both the left and the right support the proposition of individual freedom. However, people who think we should be free to smoke pot are usually not the same people who think we should be free to carry around loaded guns in holsters, like cowboys in westerns.

Both the left and the right are in favor of reducing suffering, in principle. (Nobody has so far come out with a platform plank to increase suffering by, oh, 17% by the end of 2017.) However, that doesn't get us very far. I want to reduce the suffering of poor people. Some people want to reduce the suffering of ranchers in SE Oregon who might have to pay rent to graze their cattle on Federal land. Who has priority here? Ranchers or poor people? I'm willing to bet that if leftists ran Congress the ranchers would be shit out of luck.

As for the poor people, how do we reduce their suffering?

I think it would be a good idea to teach black children how to use standard English. For that matter, I think it would be an equally good idea to teach white children how to use standard English. As adults they would have better job prospects and would be able to earn more money and suffer less. I think every child, White or Black, Asian. Arab, or Aboriginal, should receive the best possible mathematics and literature instruction. Some children are going to find one or both quite painful and "sufferous". So, do they have to study Math and Literature, or not? Speak proper English or not?

"But I don't want to learn Math and proper English. It oppresses me!" sob, snivel. As Principal Teacher, I'd say, "Yes, you do. So stop sniveling and get back in class, or I'll give you something to cry about." SNAP! goes the whip.

See, now this is a perfectly reasonable position which most of my fellow leftists will reject and most of the rightists whom I loathe will agree with. What's a man gonna do?

Arguing for certain illegal recreational drugs to have a similar legal status as, say, alcohol, is about a positive right, namely the right to partake in certain recreational acts with some degree of risk, responsibly and legally.

Arguing against the death penalty is about the negative right of freedom from state sanctioned execution.

Both involve risk, as do many things, but there isn't necessarily a double standard. There are laws which punish certain acts as a result of irresponsible drinking, but what legal recourse is there if you're innocent of a crime, but are executed by the state after being found guilty and sentenced to death? Once you''ve been executed, it's too little too late. You can be exonerated, but you can't be brought back.

There is probably some truth to the claim that "drugs are not as harmful as the political Right says they are", but the extent of the risk of harm relating to any given drug is not, it seems, in itself, good enough reason to debate the legal status of it's recreational usage, since there are many recreational acts which involve varying degrees of risk - some legal, some illegal. If I can legally jump out of a flying plane from tens of thousands of feet up in the air, but can't legally smoke a spliff in the privacy of my own home, then either it's not really about the risk of harm or the law is inconsistent and unreasonable in that respect. I suspect that it's the latter in any case. I suspect that there are hidden agendas involved in preserving the status quo and strengthening anti-drug laws.

As for your wider point about the problem of double standards and how best to resolve it: it cannot realistically be resolved. There will always be double standards (and liars, and thieves, and so on, as Bitter Crank noted).

I don't agree that the job of the government should be to minimize the amount of suffering in the country. I think that that is too simplistic, and won't always be the best means of dealing with all the complex issues relating to the governance of society. It's more open and less prone to error, but also more vague, to simply do the right thing - whether that involves minimising suffering or not. Although doing the right thing might sound even more simplistic, it could consist of a more complex solution than one which just seeks to minimise suffering. And complex problems often require complex solutions.

I assume you are talking about US politics, since you mention the death penalty. If you are referring to the Democratic party, they are pretty much opposed to all drugs. The only difference between parties is concern for inequality in punishment.

The death penalty is a really strange fish in the pudding. The US is the only G7 country that still legally executes people. Only one of 22 countries that have executed anyone in the past 2 years. It has been condemned as clearly immoral by the EU and religious leaders around the world.

If, by the "left", you mean liberal intellectuals in the country, they aren't really saying anything different than the rest of the world. It would seem the entire world is "left" and there are only a few bastions of religious extremists who claim to speak for the "right" in the US, but their political and social views fit slightly to the left of Iran.

Utilitarianism doesn't fit well with the "moral sense" of most people. Look at Phillipa Foot's thought experiments which show that people are far more concerned with intention, securing their place within the social hierarchy than simple calculations of utility. Without that backing, you end up nothing more than another tyrant imposing your will through arbitrary calculations. I think there would be too many ambiguous situations that would have to appeal to vague biases -- why we should care more about immediate utility versus long-term utility. Do you go for bailout or austerity? I think it is those kind of ambiguity and arbitrary biases that will always bring about double-standards.

The liberal left (LL) tends to be more permissive about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The conservative right (CR) is much more restrictive about sex, drugs, and rock and role. (that doesn't mean the left will be using them more than anyone else.) The LL is far less enthusiastic than the CR about the death penalty. The CR is much more tolerant of openly displayed guns than the LL. (But the CR may be reluctant to open or concealed carry a gun. The LL considers government and community to be co-extensive. The CR considers government to be either an adversary of community or irrelevant to community. LL and CR both tend to be serious ethicists; individuals in both groups are likely to obey traffic laws, separate their recycling according to the rules, avoid murder, and so forth.

LL and CR may both live in racially segregated communities, but the LL will feel (and theorize) that this is an unhealthy thing. CR will feel just fine about it. LL and CR are both going to have moments of optimism and pessimism, but the instances may or may not arise from the same circumstances. For instance, LL and CR may both feel pessimistic about their city's future if there are frequent riots, just because riots are destructive.

Both LL and CR are in favor of good education for their children, but they may not identify the same schools as ideal. A CR is more likely than a LL to place their children in a private school. A LL is more likely to place their children in a public school -- but a very, very good public school that is available. For instance, upward mobile LL parents in Bostonmight put their children in Boston Latin [public school], rather than the ratty Dorchester neighborhood school.

One can make a long list of general differences. People on the LL and CR differ on many topics. On the other hand, LL and CR people are likely to be more or less indistinguishable if you look at their non-political behavior.

Lemme fill you godless heathens in on the reasons behind conservative ideology:

The death penalty -- just desserts, reaping what you have sowed
Opposition to drugs -- sanctity of human body, work ethic, personal responsibility
Anti-abortion -- sanctity of human life
Strict law and order -- absolute right and wrong
Critical of unemployed -- idle hands, personal responsibility
Critical of government -- rights are inherent (endowed by the Creator), not given by, but only protected by, the government.
Guns -- self reliance, anti-government (as noted above)
Critical of environmental regulation -- human's right to dominion and control over the universe

The reasons can be summarized as being (if not directly religious) based upon absolute notions of right and wrong, the placement of humans as the central and dominant feature of the universe, and the demand that each infinitely sacred person contribute his fair share to the world and accept responsibility for his actions. Little sympathy is offered for those who fall short, largely because most failures are thought to arise from bad choices and the poor exercise of one's free will.

It is not at all coincidental that the right tends toward religion. It is also not coincidental that the right is referred to as conservative, as those holding firm to tradition and to the rules that have brought our society to where it is. The left is seen as dismantling the sacred traditions and casting society into ruin.

Before scoffing at the right for their clinging to religion, there really isn't much of a solution to the age old question of where to hang our most basic beliefs. We can demand that humans be treated a certain way because such are the dictates of morality, but without an absolute power out there establishing our authority, such are just emotionally stirring words. That is not to say that imposing a god as the support for our beliefs doesn't pose countless problems of its own. God: can't live with him, can't live without him.

Before scoffing at the right for their clinging to religion, there really isn't much of a solution to the age old question of where to hang our most basic beliefs. We can demand that humans be treated a certain way because such are the dictates of morality, but without an absolute power out there establishing our authority, such are just emotionally stirring words. That is not to say that imposing a god as the support for our beliefs doesn't pose countless problems of its own. God: can't live with him, can't live without him. — Hanover

I can live without him. It most likely comes down to how emotionally stirring a set of words are in either case: whether we say that it's because of morality or because of an "absolute power". The latter, if by that you mean God, is actually redundant or worse, given the Euthyphro dilemma. If I can live without him, then why can't others? Well, they can, but religion is the opiate of the masses, after all.

I've not dismissed the myriad of problems an assertion of God brings and mine isn't an argument for why he should be accepted. I do think the other side has an equal problem though in their steadfast insistence that there really are certain rights. The planet, women, children, etc. all have sacred places in the mind of the left, but he can no better support his position than the person who inserts God as the explanation for why certain things are in fact sacred.

sanctity of human life — Hanover

Why is it that when someone runs out of arguments, this kind of cop out bullshit hand wave gets used?

The more I learn about conservative philosophy ideology, the more it seems like a group of people desperately clinging to the past for emotional stability. Perhaps this is why the Right tends to oppose evolution and global warming while attaching themselves to a romanticized idea of what life was like "in the good ol' days."

The object of the discussion wasn't at all to convince you of the validity of the conservative position, but it was too offer the underlying principle for that position so that it's beliefs could be understood.

If, for example, you observed a South American tribe behaving in a peculiar way and all that behavior could be explained by reference to the underlying principles of its religion, it would make little difference if you thought their behavior stupid if all you were seeking was an understanding for why they were behaving like they were.

I suspect you'd find it equally irrelevant to this conversation if I announced that I found left leaning principles stupid.

Lemme fill you godless heathens in on the reasons behind conservative ideology:

The death penalty -- just desserts, reaping what you have sowed
Opposition to drugs -- sanctity of human body, work ethic, personal responsibility
Anti-abortion -- sanctity of human life
Strict law and order -- absolute right and wrong
Critical of unemployed -- idle hands, personal responsibility
Critical of government -- rights are inherent (endowed by the Creator), not given by, but only protected by, the government.
Guns -- self reliance, anti-government (as noted above)
Critical of environmental regulation -- human's right to dominion and control over the universe

The reasons can be summarized as being (if not directly religious) based upon absolute notions of right and wrong, the placement of humans as the central and dominant feature of the universe, and the demand that each infinitely sacred person contribute his fair share to the world and accept responsibility for his actions. Little sympathy is offered for those who fall short, largely because most failures are thought to arise from bad choices and the poor exercise of one's free will.

It is not at all coincidental that the right tends toward religion. It is also not coincidental that the right is referred to as conservative, as those holding firm to tradition and to the rules that have brought our society to where it is. The left is seen as dismantling the sacred traditions and casting society into ruin. — Hanover

I don't think that those conservative precepts hang together without at least some tension. For instance, it is hard to maintain that one adheres to the "sanctity of human life" while also disregarding environmental regulations which, in part, are meant to protect human well-being, and while supporting an utterly dysfunctional justice system's ability to separate the sheep from the goats and execute only for-realz murderers, and not just poor blokes who have been railroaded by the system. I can only say that God moves in mysterious ways in granting us memories and perceptual faculties which so often fail us, and yet allow us to be full-to-bursting with certitude when "I know what I saw." Conservatives also cling to the quaint notion that the death penalty is a "deterrence," seemingly oblivious to the fact that the evidence for this notion is murky at best, and steps into a hornet's nest of consequentialist-oriented ethical conundrums.

Speaking of the death penalty, it is also somewhat odd that government can supposedly do nothing right ("critical of government", as you say), and yet conservatives still trust it to mete out the ultimate punishment, giving just deserts (not desserts, especially now that last meals are no longer a thing in some venues) to murderers (recall Dubya's claim that Texas has never executed an innocent man). Of course, conservatives also trust the gubmint to prosecute trillion-dollar wars when certain Middle East despots have imaginary WMD's, which they will surely unleash upon Olathe, Kansas in the imminent future. So, government can't be trusted to hand out food stamps, but it can manage trillion-dollar foreign adventures? Just a bit of tension in those beliefs, I would say.

I could go on...but I won't.

I don't think that those conservative precepts hang together without at least some tension. For instance, it is hard to maintain that one adheres to the "sanctity of human life" while also disregarding environmental regulations which, in part, are meant to protect human well-being, and while supporting an utterly dysfunctional justice system's ability to separate the sheep from the goats and execute only for-realz murderers, and not just poor blokes who have been railroaded by the system. — Arkady

My objective here isn't to argue that the right's position is accurate, only that it is much more principled than the left wants to recognize.

The right's skepticism of environmental regulations is based upon the proposition that our planet is neither fragile nor realistically knowable on a macro level. They do not believe that humans are destroying the planet by simply living on what God gave them to live on. They also believe it is hubris to suggest that we really know what is causing our weather patterns. Your comment that environmental regulations were created to protect humans is simply not what the right believes to be the case. If they did believe that, then only then would their position be inconsistent, but they don't.

No one wants to put the wrong guy to death. That is not in dispute. The general view of the right is that the guilty should be punished because they are responsible for what they've done. The resistance to criminal justice reform isn't rooted in a desire to continue to punish the wrong people, but it's a distrustful reaction to the left's efforts. What the right really thinks the left is trying to do is to make it impossible to convict the guilty by affording unreasonable restrictions to prosecution (and the death penalty in particular) under the guise of fairness. The left is seen as trying to find excuses for improper conduct (like poverty, upbringing, psychological issues), where the right sees the issue as very black and white. You have free will and, regardless of what your past was, and you therefore have the ability to avoid improper conduct.

Conservatives also cling to the quaint notion that the death penalty is a "deterrence," seemingly oblivious to the fact that the evidence for this notion is murky at best, and steps into a hornet's nest of consequentialist-oriented ethical conundrums. — Arkady

I don't think the right really cares if the death penalty deters future crime, nor do I think religious based morality is at all consequentialist. You mischaracterize the right here as a bunch of Utilitarians. They are far more Kantian in the outlook.

So, government can't be trusted to hand out food stamps, but it can manage trillion-dollar foreign adventures? Just a bit of tension in those beliefs, — Arkady

As I noted, the government's role is in protecting inalienable rights, not in granting rights. For that reason, the protection of the public from harm is the highest responsibility of government. It is doing what the right believes it must.

Food stamps are well beyond what the government ought to be doing, according to the right, and it violates principles related to self-autonomy and hard work.

You seem to want to point out how stupid the right's position is, which isn't really part of this discussion. The question is whether there is a way to extrapolate what the right's position would be in a novel situation. If there is, then there must be an underlying principle at play. If not, it's just a bunch of ad hoc positions cobbled together. My belief is that it is the former, even if you think the conclusions they reach are stupid.

My objective here isn't to argue that the right's position is accurate, only that it is much more principled than the left wants to recognize. — Hanover

I realize that you are only giving an exposition of certain conservative views and the putative basis of said views, which doesn't imply that you yourself endorse them. However, you do self-identify as a conservative, do you not? Indeed, I almost always enjoy reading your posts on politics, as they bring a reasonable con perspective to this forum (and the other one).

I don't doubt that the right's beliefs stand on "principles," only that many of said principles are ill-founded, and not as unified as you seem to think.

The right's skepticism of environmental regulations is based upon the proposition that our planet is neither fragile nor realistically knowable on a macro level.

This doesn't seem to make sense. I understand that there is skepticism in some quarters about climatologists' ability to predict climate or to reconstruct past climates, but I don't think anyone disputes that we can make widespread, modern-day measurements of climate, and hence that the climate is "knowable on a macro level." We do, after all, have weather satellites, weather stations, and myriad other data streams on the current state of Earth's climate.

They do not believe that humans are destroying the planet by simply living on what God gave them to live on.

Objection to the reality of global warming has more than just religious motivations. George Will, for instance, is both an atheist and a climate "skeptic." There are also strong nationalistic and economic/ideological factors blinding their judgment (and possibly making them lie outright in some cases). For some, there is probably a mix of economic and religious factors.

They also believe it is hubris to suggest that we really know what is causing our weather patterns. Your comment that environmental regulations were created to protect humans is simply not what the right believes to be the case. If they did believe that, then only then would their position be inconsistent, but they don't.

So, for instance, the Clean Air Act and regulations governing mercury levels in drinking water are not meant to protect humans? Who or what are they meant to protect?

No one wants to put the wrong guy to death. That is not in dispute. The general view of the right is that the guilty should be punished because they are responsible for what they've done.

An anti death penalty advocate who believes that murderers ought to be imprisoned for life without parole rather than executed also believe the murderer to be "responsible." If they didn't so believe, they likely wouldn't be advocating for him to get life without parole rather than walking free.

The resistance to criminal justice reform isn't rooted in a desire to continue to punish the wrong people, but it's a distrustful reaction to the left's efforts. What the right really thinks the left is trying to do is to make it impossible to convict the guilty by affording unreasonable restrictions to prosecution (and the death penalty in particular) under the guise of fairness. The left is seen as trying to find excuses for improper conduct (like poverty, upbringing, psychological issues), where the right sees the issue as very black and white. You have free will and, regardless of what your past was, and you therefore have the ability to avoid improper conduct.

But for a brief, SCOTUS-imposed interregnum, the death penalty has been part and parcel of American criminal punishment since the beginning (though you correctly point out that the procedural barriers to actually executing people who have been sentenced to death can be high). So, if anything, the right has held more sway over criminal justice than the left, with candidates running on "law and order" platforms, elected judges needing to prove how they're "tough on crime," etc.

And even if the death penalty is desirable in principle, in practice it is riven by so many problems, both institutional, legal, and epistemological, that I don't believe that any reasonable person can defend its use. The spate of death row prisoners set free by DNA testing alone, for instance (the use of which, incredibly, some jurisdictions still resist) should give one pause.

I don't think the right really cares if the death penalty deters future crime, nor do I think religious based morality is at all consequentialist. You mischaracterize the right here as a bunch of Utilitarians. They are far more Kantian in the outlook.

Deterrence has been cited many times as one reason for having a death penalty. And appealing to the consequences of the death penalty (i.e. deterrence, in this case) is definitely a consequentialist argument.

[snip]

You seem to want to point out how stupid the right's position is, which isn't really part of this discussion. The question is whether there is a way to extrapolate what the right's position would be in a novel situation. If there is, then there must be an underlying principle at play. If not, it's just a bunch of ad hoc positions cobbled together. My belief is that it is the former, even if you think the conclusions they reach are stupid.

I've pointed out how there is at least some tension, if not outright inconsistency in the list of conservative principles which you offered, and nothing in your above post rebuts my point on that matter. As I said, conservatives will trust their government to prosecute a trillion-dollar war, but then turns around and claim that, for instance, the government is incapable of managing education on a national scale.

don't doubt that the right's beliefs stand on "principles," only that many of said principles are ill-founded, and not as unified as you seem to think. — Arkady

No doubt that pragmatics play a role in every political ideology and there are few true ideologues anywhere, but to the general proposition that the right is less principled than the left, I don't think it holds. The general thought by the left of those on the right is that they are either (1) wealthy and greedy and only trying to create policies that protect their advantaged state, or (2) poor and stupid and have been duped by the #1s into supporting policies that are against their interests.

It's no more logical to criticize a poor conservative for voting against his interests than it is to criticize a rich liberal for voting against his interests. In either case, the vote is being cast because the person thinks it's the right thing to do, not because it may or may not put more money in his pocketbook (assuming he's a guy with a pocketbook).

I understand that there is skepticism in some quarters about climatologists' ability to predict climate or to reconstruct past climates, — Arkady

That is the general criticism of the right, along with the view that the current measurements encompass a fairly small window of time. Anyway, I'm not getting dragged into an anti-global warming debate here (as I'm far more equivocal than many of my right sided brothers), but I do think there is a real argument that must be made regarding the impact of global warming regulations in terms of how effective they'll be and how much economic damage they may cause. There must be some balancing test there, and there is a considerable ideological divide in the left's general view that the earth and its many creatures have inherent value that approaches the value of the average human being. The right would disagree and would happily see the death of all sorts of creatures and the destruction of all sorts of environments if it meant people could live better lives.

So, for instance, the Clean Air Act and regulations governing mercury levels in drinking water are not meant to protect humans? Who or what are they meant to protect? — Arkady

Or course I don't want poison in my water. The slippery slope works both ways: Should we deregulate to the point of immediate death or should we regulate to the point of putting everything under shrink wrap to the point of immediate death. The truth is the that the right and the left are on a sliding scale, with the right wanting less regulation and the left wanting more. The terms "right" and "left" describe the relative positions of location on a spectrum after all.

And even if the death penalty is desirable in principle, in practice it is riven by so many problems, both institutional, legal, and epistemological, that I don't believe that any reasonable person can defend its use. — Arkady

We all agree that the death penalty should be applied to the guilty. If we limit it to cases where there is positive DNA support, and admission of guilt, and videotaped evidence, would you support it? I think not. That is to say, your objection isn't fear you've got the wrong person, your objection is that it simply is counter to your sensibilities. In fact, if I removed your every objection (racial, economic, etc), I still think you'd object. You're standing behind rationalizations and pretense, and that is the objection of the right to your objections.

Deterrence has been cited many times as one reason for having a death penalty. And appealing to the consequences of the death penalty (i.e. deterrence, in this case) is definitely a consequentialist argument. — Arkady

Sure, if the typical person advocated the death penalty because he thought that someone else would not kill for fear of being killed, then he'd be a consequentialist. I really don't think that's why folks want the death penalty. I think they'd tell you that they don't care what happens as a consequence of the guy's death; they just think he deserves it. I will agree, though, that the typical person (right or left) hasn't sorted out the distinctions between consequentialism and deontology, but religious positions tend heavily toward deontology as a whole.

No doubt that pragmatics play a role in every political ideology and there are few true ideologues anywhere, but to the general proposition that the right is less principled than the left, I don't think it holds. — Hanover

You are quite hung up on insisting that the right acts out of "principles." I don't deny that (and, so far as I can tell, no one else on this thread does, either). But members of ISIS are also acting out of certain principles when they saw off prisoners' heads on videotape. Stalin and Mao acted out of certain principles. What of it? It is those principles you raised which I'm here examining and critiquing.

The general thought by the left of those on the right is that they are either (1) wealthy and greedy and only trying to create policies that protect their advantaged state, or (2) poor and stupid and have been duped by the #1s into supporting policies that are against their interests.

It's no more logical to criticize a poor conservative for voting against his interests than it is to criticize a rich liberal for voting against his interests. In either case, the vote is being cast because the person thinks it's the right thing to do, not because it may or may not put more money in his pocketbook (assuming he's a guy with a pocketbook).

Or because the largely white, rural poor which favors the GOP has been misled by demagogues to think that the source of their woes lies with Muslims, illegal immigrants, gays, and God-hating liberals.

A rich person who decides to give up a little money he probably won't even know is missing is not equivalent to a poor person who harms himself economically with his vote; there is an asymmetry there.

Or course I don't want poison in my water. The slippery slope works both ways: Should we deregulate to the point of immediate death or should we regulate to the point of putting everything under shrink wrap to the point of immediate death. The truth is the that the right and the left are on a sliding scale, with the right wanting less regulation and the left wanting more. The terms "right" and "left" describe the relative positions of location on a spectrum after all.

So, being on the right, you agree that some environmental regulations are meant to safeguard the welfare of human life, contrary to your above claim that the right doesn't believe that some such regs are meant to protect humans?

We all agree that the death penalty should be applied to the guilty. If we limit it to cases where there is positive DNA support, and admission of guilt, and videotaped evidence, would you support it? I think not. That is to say, your objection isn't fear you've got the wrong person, your objection is that it simply is counter to your sensibilities. In fact, if I removed your every objection (racial, economic, etc), I still think you'd object. You're standing behind rationalizations and pretense, and that is the objection of the right to your objections.

I don't support the death penalty in most cases, because I don't believe that the state should be in the business of meting out such punishments. I am hiding behind no "pretense" whatsoever: if you think that I am shy about expressing my viewpoints, then you obviously have not been reading my posts over the years as closely as I've been reading yours.

As I said above, even if one supports the death penalty in principle (e.g. many conservatives), one cannot defend its use in practice due to the dysfunction of our legal system, the epistemological problems of identifying the guilty (especially given the number of defendants who have been sentenced to death only on the basis of that most flimsy of evidence, namely eyewitness testimony), etc. You agree that the death penalty should be applied only to the guilty, but clearly many innocent people have languished on death row, and would likely still be there (or even dead) were it not for the intervention of the Innocence Project and other organizations.

Sure, if the typical person advocated the death penalty because he thought that someone else would not kill for fear of being killed, then he'd be a consequentialist. I really don't think that's why folks want the death penalty. I think they'd tell you that they don't care what happens as a consequence of the guy's death; they just think he deserves it. I will agree, though, that the typical person (right or left) hasn't sorted out the distinctions between consequentialism and deontology, but religious positions tend heavily toward deontology as a whole.

I can't speak for what "folks" think, but I can say that the deterrence justification has been invoked many, many times in support of the death penalty (including by GW Bush, a certain former gov. of Texas). I don't deny that considerations of desert factor in (indeed, some juries have explicitly appealed to Biblical principles in advocating for a convicted murderer's death sentence), but deterrence is a consequentialist notion.

Deterrence is a consequentialist notion which doesn't have much deterrence value. Capital punishment "deters most people from committing murders" who weren't likely to kill anybody in the first place. Many murders occur as an irrational behavior caused by rage, jealousy, despair, and insanity (probably in that order). Other murders occur because murderers experience a rather weak, fuzzy connection between crime and punishment. A large share of the murders in the United States are carried out in black-on-black violence. These crimes are neither investigated nor prosecuted with the same energy that white-on-white or black-on-white violence is. Many of these murders are unsolved.

Nothing will determine someone acting out of rage, jealousy, despair, or insanity. The crimes are committed at a time when the individual's critical judgement has been suspended. Capital punishment won't deter people from killing others if there is considerable support for the notion that they won't get caught.

Punishment in general has weak deterrence value. It is relatively easy to commit crime and escape detection--provided one has modest criminal aspirations and keeps his mouth shut. But the greater deterrence are the bonds that we have with other people. We value other people's opinions of us, we wish to be in good standing in our communities, we don't enjoy having to deal with guilt--so we behave ourselves (most of the time--we're fallible beings).

"Liberals" and "conservatives" might be able to agree that strengthening the bonds that tie individuals together into community (everything from work to worship of the gods) is a good idea. However, the more the communities are impoverished by a legislative and corporate unwillingness to invest in the warp and weft of social life, the more people there are who have no bonds with one another, and then, the more crime.

"Liberals" and "conservatives" might be able to agree that strengthening the bonds that tie individuals together into community (everything from work to worship of the gods) is a good idea. However, the more the communities are impoverished by a legislative and corporate unwillingness to invest in the warp and weft of social life, the more people there are who have no bonds with one another, and then, the more crime. — Bitter Crank

Several scholars have written about the decline of so-called "social capital" in the United States in recent decades (Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone and Charles Murray's Coming Apart are two examples which come to mind).

However, with regard to your post specifically, I'm not sure that the relationship between poverty and crime is as cut and dried as some might think (indeed, some will just cite "poverty" as a cause of a community's degradation, as if that single word encapsulates the entire situation). For instance, national crime rates have continued to drop, right through the Great Recession.

You also seem to be saying that the depressed state of a depressed community is explainable wholly by external factors, such as "legislative and corporate unwillingness to invest" in them. You will notice that this says nothing about the behavior of people who reside in the community, and their contributions to said community's decline or depression. For instance, one sees many references to the dire state of "inner city" (i.e. majority black and/or Hispanic, usually) schools, and how the community and government has failed to serve these poor children. However, it is less often said that these schools' problems usually go beyond infrastructural, institutional, or financial problems, and that the rampant behavioral problems of the children themselves are very often at issue. Cities such as Baltimore have some of the highest per-capita spending per pupil, and yet still lag behind academically. Perhaps we can start talking about the parents' failures?

Punishment in general has weak deterrence value. — Bitter Crank

I generally agree, and I think this whole deterrence argument is a red herring. It's simply not the real basis provided by conservatives for the death penalty. The suggestion is that the right refuses to consider the overwhelming evidence showing that the death penalty is not associated with fewer murders and they just keep insisting over and over that it works. The truth, which is plain to see, is that the right doesn't care whether the death penalty reduces the murder rate. The reason is related to just deserts, plain and simple.

The right does not associate itself with consequentialist ethics, but generally adopts deontological and Biblically based theories. This weighing of happiness or whatnot is not a conservative doctrine, so I don't think the arguments in this thread suggesting otherwise hold much water.