Terrorism, justification, and illusion

Ethics

Volumn 114, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 790-805

  Smilansky, Saul ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 8644290797     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/383443     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (21)

1. Bernard Williams, Morality (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 9.
2. C. A. J. Coady, "Terrorism," in Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 1697.
3. C. A. J. Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," Philosophy 60 (1985): 58; see also Jeffrie G. Murphy, "The Killing of the Innocent," Monist 57 (1973): 547-48.
4. C. A. J. Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," Philosophy 60 (1985): 58; see also Jeffrie G. Murphy, "The Killing of the Innocent," Monist 57 (1973): 547-48.
5. See, e.g., Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978); R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris, "Violence, Terrorism and Justice," in Violence, Terrorism and Justice, ed. R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 1-17; Virginia Held, "Terrorism, Rights and Political Goals," in Frey and Morris, eds., pp. 59-85. To avoid misunderstanding, the type of deontological view I refer to is that which poses absolute constraints on intentionally harming noncombatants. Thomas Nagel, in his influential "War and Massacre," in War and Moral Responsibility, ed. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1974), calls deontology "absolutism," thereby capturing this feature.
6. See, e.g., Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978); R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris, "Violence, Terrorism and Justice," in Violence, Terrorism and Justice, ed. R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 1-17; Virginia Held, "Terrorism, Rights and Political Goals," in Frey and Morris, eds., pp. 59-85. To avoid misunderstanding, the type of deontological view I refer to is that which poses absolute constraints on intentionally harming noncombatants. Thomas Nagel, in his influential "War and Massacre," in War and Moral Responsibility, ed. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1974), calls deontology "absolutism," thereby capturing this feature.
7. See, e.g., Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978); R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris, "Violence, Terrorism and Justice," in Violence, Terrorism and Justice, ed. R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 1-17; Virginia Held, "Terrorism, Rights and Political Goals," in Frey and Morris, eds., pp. 59-85. To avoid misunderstanding, the type of deontological view I refer to is that which poses absolute constraints on intentionally harming noncombatants. Thomas Nagel, in his influential "War and Massacre," in War and Moral Responsibility, ed. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1974), calls deontology "absolutism," thereby capturing this feature.
8. See, e.g., Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978); R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris, "Violence, Terrorism and Justice," in Violence, Terrorism and Justice, ed. R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 1-17; Virginia Held, "Terrorism, Rights and Political Goals," in Frey and Morris, eds., pp. 59-85. To avoid misunderstanding, the type of deontological view I refer to is that which poses absolute constraints on intentionally harming noncombatants. Thomas Nagel, in his influential "War and Massacre," in War and Moral Responsibility, ed. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1974), calls deontology "absolutism," thereby capturing this feature.
9. See, e.g., Murphy, pp. 547-48. This is sometimes grounded in the principle of self-defense: see, e.g., Robert K. Fullinwider, "War and Innocence," in International Ethics, ed. Charles R. Beitz, Marshall Cohen, Thomas Scanlon, and A. John Simmons (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 94.
10. See, e.g., Murphy, pp. 547-48. This is sometimes grounded in the principle of self-defense: see, e.g., Robert K. Fullinwider, "War and Innocence," in International Ethics, ed. Charles R. Beitz, Marshall Cohen, Thomas Scanlon, and A. John Simmons (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 94.
11. Such a view is sometimes called "moderate deontology" or "threshold deontology," but this seems to me misleading. On the need for conceptual clarity here, see my "Can Deontologists Be Moderate?" Utilitas 15 (2003): 71-75.
12. For an extreme view on this, see Jeff McMahan, "Innocence, Self-Defense, and Killing in War," Journal of Political Philosophy 2 (1994): 193-221, and his article, "The Ethics of Killing in War," in this issue.
13. For an extreme view on this, see Jeff McMahan, "Innocence, Self-Defense, and Killing in War," Journal of Political Philosophy 2 (1994): 193-221, and his article, "The Ethics of Killing in War," in this issue.
14. This was suggested to me by Jeff McMahan.
15. It might be thought that by limiting my discussion to post-World War II events I have avoided the pertinent grievances that might justify terrorism. Since I think that the intentional targeting of noncombatants is morally so bad, very strong justification is required to overcome the constraint against it. It is hard to see why old historical grievances lying generations away, even if substantial, canjustify killing noncombatants in the present. To do so would open the door to virtually unlimited worldwide violence, for historically nearly every national territorial holding has been acquired unjustly (and imagine, e.g., any effort to address slavery, colonialism, or the Holocaust through terrorism!). This has interesting implications that limit the role of considerations of justice within moral justification, but this matter cannot be pursued here. In any case, I do not see that in our three cases the grievances are now morally salient, although a footnote is not the place for a thorough defense of this claim. The Protestants have been in Northern Ireland for hundreds of years, and one cannot seriously think of current Protestants as invaders or upstarts. Jews have been in what the Romans (seeking to eliminate Jewish national identity) called Palestine for longer, of course, and even before the modern Zionist movement of the 1870s had a significant presence there (there was a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, e.g.). The return of Jews to their ancient homeland was a way of reestablishing political and cultural self-determination, as other peoples had, with the hopes for security in a dangerous world. Zionist immigration was nonviolent and made into a politically undefined place (at the beginning of the process the local Arabs saw themselves as part of the larger Arab entity, and Palestinian national identity itself developed as a response to the Jewish immigration, which of course does not imply that it is not now morally legitimate or important). I cannot begin to imagine how a serious argument for historical justification of terrorism is supposed to work with Al-Oaida; judging from the rhetoric perhaps the Crusaders are the main culprits.
16. On this notion, see Saul Smilansky, Free Will and Illusion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), chap. 7. The usefulness of a "positive illusion" typically depends on its not being recognized as such.
17. See Saul Smilansky, "The Ethical Dangers of Ethical Sensitivity," Journal of Applied Philosophy 13 (1996): 13-20.
18. See Smilansky, Free Will and Illusion, chap. 11.
19. This quotation is from "The Spirit of the IDF" (the revised ethical code of the Israeli army; Israeli Defense Force official publication, accepted September 2001), available at the Israeli Defense Forces's official Web site, "Doctrine of Ethics," http://www1.idf.il/ DOVER/site/mainpage. asp?s1=en&id=23.
20. The quotation is from the 1977 Protocol to the Geneva Convention, Article 13.2. See "Protocols additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-international Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), 8 June 1977," available at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Web site, http:// www.unchr.ch/html/menu3/b/ 94.htm.
21. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), p. 498.