Abstract
There are two central philosophical questions about terrorism: What is it? And what, if anything, is wrong with it? Here I propose to deal primarily with the first question, but I do so because of the importance of the second. The point is that various issues about the rights and wrongs of terrorist acts, and, for that matter, anti-terrorist responses, cannot be adequately addressed unless we are clear about what topic we are discussing. Too many debates about terrorism are at cross-purposes because of radical confusions about exactly what is being discussed.
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Notes
Alex P. Schmid, Political Terrorism: A Research Guide to Concepts, Theories, Data Bases, and Literature, pp. 119ā58, cited in Walter Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1987), p. 143.
Martin Hughes, āTerrorism and National Security,ā Philosophy 57 (1982), p. 5.
Barrie A. Paskins and M.L. Dockrill, The Ethics of War (London: Duckworth, 1979), p. 89.
Grant Wardlaw, Political Terrorism: Theory, Tactics and Counter-Measures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 16.
C.A.J Coady, āThe Morality of Terrorism,ā Philosophy 60 (1985);
Igor Primoratz, āWhat Is Terrorism?ā chapter 2 in this volume; Jenny Teichman, Pacifism and the Just War (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986);
Michael Walzer, āTerrorism: A Critique of Excuses,ā in Steven Luper-Foy (ed.), Problems of International Justice (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1988).
See C.A.J. Coady, āThe Idea of Violence,ā Journal of Applied Philosophy 3 (1986).
Paul Wilkinson, Political Terrorism (London: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 16ā17.
See, most recently, David Rodin, War and Self-Defence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
See also Jeff McMahan, āSelf-Defense and the Problem of the Innocent Attacker,ā Ethics 104 (1993/94), and āInnocence, Self-Defense and Killing in War,ā Journal of Political Philosophy 2 (1994).
Quoted in Stephen A. Garrett, āPolitical Leadership and Dirty Hands: Winston Churchill and the City Bombing of Germany,ā in Cathal J. Nolan (ed.), Ethics and Statecraft: The Moral Dimension of International Affairs (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995), pp. 80ā1.
Quoted in Robert Taber, The War of the Flea (London: Paladin, 1972), p. 106.
Michael Walzer gives an excellent example of this frenzy by citing Guy Chapmanās recounting of an episode from World War I of Allied soldiers killing Germans who were trying to surrender. See Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, third edition (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 306ā7.
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CoadĪ³, C.A.J.T. (2004). Defining Terrorism. In: Primoratz, I. (eds) Terrorism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204546_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230204546_1
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