Terrorism and the Ethics of War by Stephen Nathanson

Author:Stephen Nathanson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Although Lackey criticizes actual terrorist attacks and says that they are “almost never” justified, his position could be restated more positively. Instead of “almost never” justified, he could have echoed R. M. Hare’s judgment that terrorism is “very seldom” justified. While this too has a negative sound, it definitely implies that terrorism is sometimes justified.4 While Lackey criticizes terrorists because they typically lack a just cause and are “almost invariably” ineffective, his overall view commits him to saying that if they did have a just cause and if their attacks on civilians were effective, then these attacks could be justified. In spite of his negative language, Lackey seems to confirm what critics say: utilitarian reasoning undermines noncombatant immunity and opens the door to justifying terrorist acts.5

While Lackey and others use utilitarian arguments to defend this conclusion, others see this use as a confirmation of the moral baseness of utilitarianism. They charge that the utilitarian method of calculating benefits and losses undermines the role of conscience and our sense of humanity. In this sharply critical spirit, Stuart Hampshire writes that

The utilitarian habit of mind has brought with it a new abstract cruelty in politics, a dull, destructive political righteousness: mechanical, quantitative thinking, leaden academic minds setting out their moral calculations in leaden abstract prose, and more civilised and more superstitious people destroyed because of enlightened calculations that have proved wrong.6

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