Some Reflections upon the Supposed Moral Distinction between Terrorism and the Legitimate Use of Military Force
The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 1:207-211 (2007)
| Abstract | Defining "terrorism" as the intentional targeting of non-combatant civilians, the paper argues that, other things being equal, it is not possible to effectively distinguish morally between "terrorism" and use of military power against combatant targets which might reasonably be expected to produce some guesstimable quantity of "collateral" or non-combatant civilian casualties; that it is upon the expected likely consequences of actions rather than upon the intentions underlying them, that actors should be morally judged. Furthermore I argue that other attempts to rationalize the use of conventional military force, as retaliatory for prior "terrorist" actions, or as preemptive, also often largely fail either on historical grounds ("terrorists" often see their actions as responses to previously unjustified killing or letting die of the non-combatant civilian population they see themselves as representing) or pragmatic grounds (as the unintentional killing of non-combatant civilians often increases the sense of righteous indignation which helps recruit further "terrorists") | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMark R. Reiff (2008). Terrorism, Retribution, and Collective Responsibility. Social Theory and Practice 34 (2):209-242.
Whitley R. P. Kaufman (2004). Terrorism, Self-Defense, and the Killing of the Innocent. Social Philosophy Today 20:41-52.
Helen Frowe (2012). Self-Defence and the Principle of Non-Combatant Immunity. Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (4):530-546.
Anne Schwenkenbecher (2010). Terrorism Against Non-Innocents: The Ethical Implications. In Paul Omoyefa (ed.), Basic Applied Ethics. VDM.
Ted Westhusing (2003). Taking Terrorism and ROE Seriously. Journal of Military Ethics 2 (1):1-19.
Uwe Steinhoff (2007). On the Ethics of War and Terrorism. Oxford University Press.
Harry van der Linden (2009). Questioning the Resort to U.S. Hegemonic Military Force. In Ted van Baarda & Désirée Verweij (eds.), The Moral Dimension of Asymmetrical Warfare: Counter-Terrorism, Democratic Values and Military Ethics. Martinus Nijhoff.
Alison M. Jaggar (2003). Responding to the Evil of Terrorism. Hypatia 18 (1):175 - 182.
Michael Skerker (2004). Just War Criteria and the New Face of War: Human Shields, Manufactured Martyrs, and Little Boys with Stones. Journal of Military Ethics 3 (1):27-39.
Richard M. Buck (2004). Beyond Retribution. Social Philosophy Today 20:67-80.
Alan S. Rosenbaum (2003). On Terrorism and the Just War. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 17 (2):173-196.
Shawn Kaplan (2009). Three Prejudices Against Terrorism. Critical Studies on Terrorism 2 (2):181-199.
Virginia Held (2004). Terrorism and War. Journal of Ethics 8 (1):59-75.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-12-02Total downloads6 ( #145,729 of 549,196 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,397 of 549,196 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
