Concluding Remarks

Abstract

This book examined the most urgent philosophical questions pertaining to the problem of terrorism: What is terrorism, or how should it be defined? And could terrorism ever be justified? It is quite possible that the answers given to these questions here leave some of my readers unsatisfied. First of all, one could argue that the conditions for justifying terrorist killing which I established are too restrictive and cannot be complied with by any real act of terrorism. But I would not agree with this. While it is true that the conditions are fairly restrictive, there is no reason to hold them unsatisfiable. Also, the fact that there has hardly been any real terrorist act which satisfied these criteria is an argument not so much against these criteria but against these terrorist acts. Moreover, terrorist acts causing only damage to property are not equally difficult to justify, even though they are not covered in this book. One must not forget that taking another person’s life is an extreme measure, usually ignoring that person’s interests and failing to respect her as an end in herself. The threshold for taking another person’s life should be high. And it should be clear that lethal violence is nearly always the worse alternative for resolving a conflict or ending an injustice.