Recently, I wrote an article on \u201cterrorism\u201d that was rejected by a publication that typically accepts my submissions.<\/p>\n
In my piece, I make two points.<\/p>\n
First, in spite of the confidence with which everyone presumes to know its nature, there is anything but agreement over what \u201cterrorism\u201d could possibly mean, for the word has been applied in connection with both those Muslims who have killed agents of the American government as well as with those who have killed civilians.<\/p>\n
The definition of \u201cterrorism\u201d is unclear.<\/p>\n
The second point I made is that whether we apply the term \u201cterrorism\u201d to one class of attackers or the other, we presuppose a meaning for the word that at least appears <\/i>to apply just as well to modern states\u2014including our own country. <\/i><\/p>\n
If the Muslims who take aim at agents of the U.S. government are terrorists, then so too, it would appear, were the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor.\u00a0 If those responsible for 9\/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing are terrorists because they attacked civilians, then, it would seem, so too might our own government\u2019s actions toward Hiroshima and Nagasaki, say, be acts of terrorism.<\/p>\n
But only non-state actors can be terrorists, some might say.\u00a0 If <\/i>so (and this is a big \u201cif\u201d), then maybe it is the case that only states can go to war, and then, only with other states. \u00a0This objection proves too much, for it undermines those who insist that we are in a “war” with “Radical Islam.”<\/p>\n
A much more common objection is that neither America nor any other modern \u201cdemocracy\u201d intends <\/i>to kill civilians\u2014even if this loss of life is foreseen.\u00a0 The otherwise sound Catholic doctrine of \u201cdouble-effect\u201d\u2014the doctrine that an otherwise objectionable course of action may be permissible as long as its consequences, though foreseen, are unintended and unavoidable\u2014is here invoked.\u00a0 It is also corrupted.<\/p>\n
As the distinguished 20th<\/sup> century Roman Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe notes: \u201cIt is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend to do what is the means you take to your chosen end.\u00a0 Otherwise there is absolutely no substance to the Pauline teaching that we may not do evil that good may come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The publication that rejected this piece rejected it on three grounds.<\/p>\n First, the editors protested, terrorism does <\/i>indeed have an \u201cobjective definition.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 To support this contention, they directed me to an old article in their archives in which the author, following conventional practice, defines terrorism as the murder of innocents for political purposes.<\/p>\n For starters, I never denied the possibility of defining terrorism.\u00a0 In fact, I draw on elements of my editors\u2019 definition to support my point that whether it is Islamic belligerents killing government agents or<\/i> civilians (i.e. \u201cinnocents\u201d), labeling these as acts of terrorism gives rise to\u00a0problems that are both logical and ethical.\u00a0 Moreover, the claim that there is an \u201cobjective definition\u201d of terrorism may be true, but this precludes neither the possibility of other \u201cobjective\u201d definitions nor the possibility that this <\/i>definition is objectively false.\u00a0 <\/i>To assert otherwise is question-begging.<\/p>\n Second, the Benghazi attack on an American embassy was conducted by, not a spontaneously formed mob, but \u201can Al-Qaeda affiliate\u201d\u2014i.e. a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n Again, this does not speak to anything that I wrote.\u00a0 I never denied that there are terrorists.\u00a0 As the title of my article makes clear, I am interested in answering the question: What <\/i>is terrorism<\/i>? This is a philosophical question that, as such, cannot be answered by merely pointing to a group that is widely regarded as a terrorist group.\u00a0 To go about it this way is, once more, to beg the question.<\/p>\n Finally, the editors disagreed with my insinuation that we treat the attacks I list as acts of terror just because they are executed by Muslims.\u00a0 After all, the Oklahoma City bombing was deemed a terrorist act, yet the bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was a white American.<\/p>\n This objection is just as misplaced as the first two.<\/p>\n Because their shared faith is the only common denominator in my list of attacks, it is true that I suggest that this is why we insist upon lumping together Muslims who kill government agents with those who kill civilians as terrorists.\u00a0 But this in no way implies that anyone thinks that only <\/i>Muslims are terrorists.<\/p>\n Even a friend remarked that I should\u2019ve first stated \u201cthe accepted definition\u201d of terrorism and then critiqued it.\u00a0 But I wanted to work backwards by looking at the various ways in which we use the term \u201cterrorism\u201d to show that if a meaningful definition is forthcoming, it still eludes us.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t going to start with a definition: I am still in search of one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I wrote an article on \u201cterrorism\u201d that was rejected by a publication that typically accepts my submissions. In my piece, I make two points. First, in spite of the confidence with which everyone presumes to know its nature, there is anything but agreement over what \u201cterrorism\u201d could possibly mean, for the word has been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n