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Abstract
This term is most commonly used to refer to acts involving loss of life or the destruction of property, but is not inherently so limited. Terrorism is often restricted to unlawful violent acts undertaken by someone other than a government or its agents acting overtly. If these restrictions are added, the American bombings of Hiroshima and Dresden during World War II no longer constitute terrorism since they were undertaken by a government overtly, in a manner arguably consistent with the laws of war (although undoubtedly in violation of the laws of Japan and Germany). The idea of the ‘terrorist’ as a type of person rather than a technique of violence grew out of the concept of the ‘urban guerrilla’ which in turn was a kind of revolutionary – mainly based in South America – who sought in the 1960s to bring Castro’s and Che Guevara’s insights about rural guerrilla subversion to the cities. The ‘terrorist’ is no longer (merely and relatively neutrally) the deplorer of political terror, whether as government leader, guerrilla hero or ambitious revolutionary, and maybe as part of a wider military campaign, maybe not. The terrorist is always now a subversive, someone who opposes the established order either in his or her nation (‘the domestic terrorist’) or internationally (the ‘international terrorist’). Secondly, the subversive today is landed with this ‘terrorist’ label even if he or she has never engaged in political terror as such, in the central sense of attacking civilians in order to communicate a political message. Consequentialist argue that focusing solely on duties and ignoring consequences is itself immoral. Thus a seemingly immoral act, such as killing an innocent child, may be moral—indeed, it may be morally required—if the net effect is good; for example, if killing that child would permit us to save a million other lives. Deontological moral systems, by contrast, hold that acts or rules are right or wrong in and of themselves, regardless of their consequences. Ends do not justify means. It is wrong to kill an innocent child, deontologists assert, no matter how many other lives we might thereby save. Unlike consequentialism and deontology, virtue ethics focuses on actors rather than on acts, rules, or consequences. Our objective, it asserts, should be to be the right kind of person. How we act may be important, but it is important primarily because it reflects on who we are. We should not be the kind of person who would kill an innocent child. Or perhaps, alternatively, we should not be the kind of person who would allow a million people to perish for failure to kill an innocent child. All three modes of ethical analysis have adherents, all three critics. When applied to the problem of terrorism, all three prove unsatisfactory in important regards.

Keywords:Terrorist , Consequentialism , Non-Consequentialism , Morality , Victims, Violence .

INTRODUCTION

The idea of the ‘terrorist’ as a type of person rather than a technique of violence grew out of the
concept of the ‘urban guerrilla’ which in turn was a kind of revolutionary – mainly based in South America – who sought in the 1960s to bring Castro’s and Che Guevara’s insights about rural guerrilla subversion to the cities. Wandering around the forest looking for the state’s army to attack was fine in certain circumstances but not a sure fire recipe for revolutionary success in country’s with large urban populations.Unfortunately, there exists no consensus definition in U.S. or international law. U.S. law, for example, contains multiple inconsistent definitions. For foreign relations purposes, terrorism is defined as “premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents.” In other words, act, motive, actor, and victim are all specified; the legality of the violence appears to be irrelevant. For immigration law purposes, by contrast, terrorism consists of any of a list of specified violent unlawful acts; the identities of the actor and victim are irrelevant, as are the actor’s motives; an act is unlawful if it violates the laws of any jurisdiction. For U.S. criminal and national defense purposes, terrorism is defined generically as any violent or life threatening unlawful act undertaken with specified (generally political) motives; again the identities of actor and victim are irrelevant. There is relative consensus about the acts and motives required for terrorism. The term is most commonly used to refer to acts involving loss of life or the destruction of property, but is not inherently so limited. Terrorism is often restricted to unlawful violent acts undertaken by someone other than a government or its agents acting overtly. If these restrictions are added, the American bombings of Hiroshima and Dresden during World War II no longer constitute terrorism since they were undertaken by a government overtly, in a manner arguably consistent with the laws of war (although undoubtedly in violation of the laws of Japan and Germany). As a practical matter, many believe that such restrictions are necessary; otherwise, all war would be classified as terrorism—again diluting the usefulness of the term. Terrorism, more narrowly conceived, often does receive governmental support, but such support is generally covert. The problem, of course, is that the powerful tend to make the laws and the powerless tend not to have recognized governments through which to act. If we restrict terrorism to unlawful acts performed by nongovernmental parties, we insulate many of the most powerful actors on the international stage from this line of moral scrutiny. In effect, we are claiming that it is moral for us to kill, bomb, and maim, but not for Al Qaeda to do so. We may want to leave open the possibility that such a claim has merit. But we cannot assume its merit without examination simply by defining terrorism narrowly. It is therefore useful to break the question, Is terrorism moral? into at least two parts: Is politically motivated violence (of which terrorism is a subset) moral? and Does it matter whether that violence is lawful or conducted overtly by a state.

Historically it has been states that have been most extreme in their deployment of political terror, the greatest because bloodiest exponents of terrorism. Clear examples from the past include not only the excesses of Stalin and Hitler but also the use of violence by central American governments in the 1980s and – perhaps most dramatically of all – the dropping of the two Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The latter in particular was a pure act of political terror: ‘look what we can do, now listen to us’. The same could be said of the United Kingdom’s decision to attack German cities from the air during the latter part of the second world war. Manifestly it is frequently political terror that the Israelis have been engaged in on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, just as it is what they often did in Lebanon in 1982 and on countless other occasions before and after. Civilians are attacked, deliberately or as a result of a reckless disregard for their safety in order to say something to your adversaries that you judge cannot be communicated in any other way. A suicide bomber is also a terrorist on this analysis but all they have is themselves, a few bombs and a willingness to die . The first point to note is that the term terrorist now describes a category of person rather than a technique of violence. The ‘terrorist’ is no longer (merely and relatively neutrally) the deplorer of political terror, whether as government leader, guerrilla hero or ambitious revolutionary, and maybe as part of a wider military campaign, maybe not. The terrorist is always now a subversive, someone who opposes the established order either in his or her nation (‘the domestic terrorist’) or internationally (the ‘international terrorist’). Secondly, the subversive today is landed with this ‘terrorist’ label even if he or she has never engaged in political terror as such, in the central sense of attacking civilians in order to communicate a political message. These latter day ‘terrorists’ may be merely challenging the power of the ruling elite, as are Mr Mugabe’s ‘terrorists’ in Zimbabwe. It would be impossible adequately to summarize contemporary moral theory in an paper of this length. I must therefore oversimplify, perhaps even caricaturize.

With this caveat, contemporary theory can be grouped roughly into three categories: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Consequentialism comes in many flavors. At bottom, however, consequentialist moral systems hold that an act or rule about acts is morally right if and only if its consequences are desirable. Consequentialist argue that focusing solely on duties and ignoring consequences is itself immoral. Thus a seemingly immoral act, such as killing an innocent child, may be moral—indeed, it may be morally required—if the net effect is good; for example, if killing that child would permit us to save a million other lives. Deontological moral systems, by contrast, hold that acts or rules are right or wrong in and of themselves, regardless of their consequences. Ends do not justify means. It is wrong to kill an innocent child, deontologists assert, no matter how many other lives we might thereby save. Unlike consequentialism and deontology, virtue ethics focuses on actors rather than on acts, rules, or consequences. Our objective, it asserts, should be to be the right kind of person. How we act may be important, but it is important primarily because it reflects on who we are. We should not be the kind of person who would kill an innocent child. Or perhaps, alternatively, we should not be the kind of person who would allow a million people to perish for failure to kill an innocent child. All three modes of ethical analysis have adherents, all three critics. When applied to the problem of terrorism, all three prove unsatisfactory in important regards.
The principle of reciprocity tells us that when another player defects, it is generally necessary to defect in response—that is, it is generally necessary to punish. Punishment, therefore, is moral, even as unprovoked defection is not. The problem is that in the absence of conventions for moral assessment (normally provided by a common ethos of reciprocity), it is sometimes very difficult to tell whether a given nasty action is an unprovoked defection or is rather punishment for some prior defection by another player. In the absence of a common ethos of reciprocity, therefore, defection is inherently ambiguous.

As the hackneyed cliche has it, one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. This suggests there is a double standard at work, of the form . Another type of double standard, less obvious and therefore even more of an obstacle to understanding and judging terrorism, is the tendency to accuse insurgents who resort to violence of resorting to terrorism, without taking a closer look into the type of violence and who its victims are. This is coupled with an unwillingness to talk of terrorism in relation to the violent actions and policies of a state and, in particular, one's own state--even though what is done is the same. This indicates a double standard of the form "state versus non-state actors', The debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of terrorism in that conflict provide a telling example. Both Palestinians and Israelis have been committing what many might want to call terrorism. yet both deny that they have been engaging in terrorism and both accuse the other side of doing so. What the Palestinians are saying is: ours is a just struggle for putting an end to occupation and oppression and for attaining self-determination. We are both morally and legally entitled to use violence to this end. That isn't terrorism, but rather fighting for freedom. Israelis respond by saying that the state is merely using its armed forces and security services in defense of the country and the security of its citizens against terrorist attacks. Thus Palestinians are assuming that the decisive criterion of terrorism is the ultimate goal of the agent: if it is a legitimate goal such as national liberation, it can't be terrorism. In their view, 'terrorists fighting for freedom' is a contradiction in terms.
I believe terrorism is best defined as the deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people, with the aim of intimidating some other people into a course of action they otherwise would not take. Defined in this way, terrorism is an indirect strategy. It has two targets. One person or group is attacked directly in order to get at another person or group and intimidate them into doing something they otherwise would not do. In terms of importance, the indirect target is primary and the direct target secondary. The secondary, but directly-attacked target, are innocent people. In the context of war, this is usually taken to include all except members of armed forces and security services; those who supply them with arms and ammunition; and political officials directly involved in the conflict.