Terrorism without intention

Ethics

Volumn 114, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 752-771

  Rodin, David ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 8744259741     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/383442     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (41)

1. Quoted in C. A. J. Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," Philosophy 60 (1985): 47-69, p. 47.
2. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic, 1977), p. 197. Walter Lacquer, on the other hand, explicitly denies that randomness is necessary to terrorism. See Walter Lacqueur, The Age of Terrorism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987), pp. 143-44.
3. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic, 1977), p. 197. Walter Lacquer, on the other hand, explicitly denies that randomness is necessary to terrorism. See Walter Lacqueur, The Age of Terrorism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987), pp. 143-44.
4. Igor Primoratz, "What Is Terrorism?" Journal of Applied Philosophy 7 (1990): 129-38, p. 135.
5. Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 52.
6. Carl Wellman, "On Terrorism Itself," Journal of Value Enquiry 13 (Winter 1979): 250-58, p. 251.
7. See Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 52; Jenny Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism," Philosophy 64 (1989): 512-13.
8. See Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 52; Jenny Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism," Philosophy 64 (1989): 512-13.
9. U.K. Terrorism Act, 2000, pt. 1, sec. 1.
10. Wellman, "On Terrorism Itself," p. 250.
11. I b i d.
12. Walter Lacqueur, "Postmodern Terrorism," Foreign Affairs 75 (1996): 24-36, p. 24.
13. Quoted in George Lopez and Neve Gordon, "Terrorism in the Arab-Israeli Conflict," in Ethics in International Affairs, ed. Andrew Valls (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), pp. 99-113, p. 103.
14. For "innocent," see Primoratz, "What Is Terrorism?" pp. 131, 133; for "neurral," see Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism," p. 513; and for "non-combatant," see Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 52.
15. For "innocent," see Primoratz, "What Is Terrorism?" pp. 131, 133; for "neurral," see Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism," p. 513; and for "non-combatant," see Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 52.
16. For "innocent," see Primoratz, "What Is Terrorism?" pp. 131, 133; for "neurral," see Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism," p. 513; and for "non-combatant," see Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 52.
17. Primoratz, "What Is Terrorism?" p. 131.
18. There may be some doubt as to whether the disruption of information systems (cyberterrorism) can be properly described as a "use of force." Some incidences clearly are. For example, one of the most frightening possibilities envisioned by Pentagon scenario planners is the use of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (or HEMP) to attack the information infrastructure of the United States. A single nuclear device detonated at an altitude of 300 kilometers could devastate electrical systems across 90 percent of the continental United States, though the blast itself would cause no harm to persons on the ground. Such an attack is certainly a use of force and would count as an act of terrorism in the morally relevant sense. In contrast, the use of computer hacking to disrupt Web sites and information systems does not employ physical force, though it is often included under the heading of cyberterrorism. Such acts are probably best seen as borderline cases of terrorism. Though they do not involve physical force, they are still properly described as "attacks" upon property (albeit of an intangible kind) and may cause significant harm to the lives and interests of their victims.
19. For example, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong includes the threat of force in his definition of terrorism (Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, "On Primoratz's Definition of Terrorism," Journal of Value Enquiry 8 [1991]: 116), and it is explicitly included in the U.K. Terrorism Act, 2000, definition (pt. 1, sec. 1).
20. Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed.
21. Thus the rather confusing equation within just war theory between noncombatants and "the innocent." 'Innocent' is the negation of 'nocent', meaning harmful or injurious.
22. For a critique of the claim that it can be justifiable to use force against a morally innocent "material aggressor," see David Rodin, War and Self-Defense (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), chap. 4, esp. pp. 83 ff.
23. Walzel, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 145n.
24. See, e.g., Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) (1977), art. 51, sec. 2: "the civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack."
25. It would seem that as a minimum we may say that a substantively just legal system must involve the application of laws that do not violate basic human rights; impartial enforcement and judicial bodies; fair rules of evidence; and ideally effective procedures of appeal and review.
26. Teichman, "How to Define Terrorism," p. 511.
27. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 200.
28. Lacqueur, "Postmodern Terrorism," sec. 2.
29. None of this, of course, should obscure the significance of such features for the moral assessment of terrorism. It is a vitally important feature of the crime of terrorism that it will frequently cause severe and widespread fear and social dislocation. The claim is simply that these features ought not be made part of the definition of the crime. They are rather, as Tony Coady says, important empirical insights into the sociology and motivational psychology of terrorism (Coady, "The Morality of Terrorism," p. 53).
30. Carl Conetta puts the figure at 1,000-1,300 civilian deaths directly from aerial bombardment and a minimum of 3,000 civilian deaths attributable to the impact of the bombing campaign and war on the nation's refugee and famine crises (Strange Victory: A Critical Appraisal of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan War, Project on Defense Alternatives, Research Monograph no. 6 [Cambridge, Mass.: Commonwealth Foundation, January 2002]).
31. See Frances M. Kamm, "The Doctrine of Triple Effect and Why a Rational Agent Need Not Intend the Means to His End," The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74, no. 1 (2000): 21-39, p. 23.
32. T. M. Scanlon, "Intention and Permissibility," The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74, no. 1 (2000): 301-17, p. 303.
33. See Judith Jarvis Thomson, "Self-Defense," Philosophy & Public Affairs 20 (1991): 283-311, p. 293.
34. G. E. M. Anscombe, "War and Murder," in Moral Problems, ed. James Rachels (New York: HarperCollins, 1979); J. C. Ford, "The Morality of Obliteration Bombing," in War and Morality, ed. Richard Wasserstrom (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970), pp. 15-41. Partly as a response to worries such as these, T. M. Scanlon has, in a recent paper, suggested a way of interpreting typical double-effect cases in a way that does not invoke the distinction between direct and oblique intention: T. M. Scanlon, "Intention and Permissibility," The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74, no. 1 (2000): 301-17.
35. G. E. M. Anscombe, "War and Murder," in Moral Problems, ed. James Rachels (New York: HarperCollins, 1979); J. C. Ford, "The Morality of Obliteration Bombing," in War and Morality, ed. Richard Wasserstrom (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970), pp. 15-41. Partly as a response to worries such as these, T. M. Scanlon has, in a recent paper, suggested a way of interpreting typical double-effect cases in a way that does not invoke the distinction between direct and oblique intention: T. M. Scanlon, "Intention and Permissibility," The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74, no. 1 (2000): 301-17.
36. G. E. M. Anscombe, "War and Murder," in Moral Problems, ed. James Rachels (New York: HarperCollins, 1979); J. C. Ford, "The Morality of Obliteration Bombing," in War and Morality, ed. Richard Wasserstrom (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970), pp. 15-41. Partly as a response to worries such as these, T. M. Scanlon has, in a recent paper, suggested a way of interpreting typical double-effect cases in a way that does not invoke the distinction between direct and oblique intention: T. M. Scanlon, "Intention and Permissibility," The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74, no. 1 (2000): 301-17.
37. I am indebted to Jeff McMahan for raising this point.
38. A possible exception to this observation may be in the case of humanitarian intervention.
39. For the legal definition of jus in bello proportionality see Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) (1977), art. 51 (5) (b) and art. 57 (2) (b).
40. This analysis, of course, raises a difficult question about how it can ever be justifiable to impose risk upon those who have not through their actions made themselves specifically morally vulnerable to it. This question is beyond the scope of this article, but my sense is that the answer has to do with two kinds of consideration. The first is the kind of free collective consent to beneficial but risky activities assumed by communities, such as was discussed in Sec. III above. The second has to do with the much rarer set of cases in which there are such overwhelming consequentialist considerations that we are inclined to believe that it isjustifiable to impose risks upon those who have done nothing to deserve their imposition. Such cases, of course, necessarily take us far beyond the bounds of any plausible conception of proportionality.
41. See Henry Shue and David Wippman, "Limiting Attacks on Dual-Use Facilities Performing Indispensable Civilian Functions," Cornell International Law Journal 35 (2002): 559-79.