The Wrongness of Terrorism According to Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel / Moral Philosopher

Translated by Javad Heydari

Translator’s Note: To explain what is wrong with terrorism, Thomas Nagel draws a distinction between ends and means. It is not the ends or goals of terrorism that make it wrong; rather, the problem lies in the means that terrorism employs: namely, the killing of innocent people. Terrorism violates the moral principle that targeting innocent people is morally wrong. According to Nagel, killing a person in self-defense does not violate this moral prohibition. Likewise, killing innocent people in war is morally permissible provided it occurs as an unintended side effect of an attack on legitimate military targets.

1- What is wrong with terrorism? What moral objection can be raised against it? What makes a terrorist massacre more deserving of condemnation compared to other forms of killing, such as domestic or tribal murder?

2- Terrorism has a means and an end. The means of terrorism is attacking civilians, and its ends could be, for example, an independent Bosnian state, putting pressure on a particular government, or America’s withdrawal from the Middle East. Here, the condemnation of terrorism is due to the means it uses—that is, targeting innocent people and civilians—not the goals it seeks to achieve.

3- No matter how noble the end, one cannot choose terrorist means to achieve those ends. Even if no other way remains to reach those ends, weighing costs and benefits is still not permissible here.

4- Why can’t innocent people be targeted to achieve valuable ends? Because we have a general moral principle that says we must not target innocent people. The core of moral thought is precisely the prohibition against targeting the death of innocent persons. The assumption is that every person is inviolable unless and until that person becomes a danger to others. But as long as we have caused no harm or injury to others, no one should kill us simply because killing us is useful and can help achieve goals, however valuable.

5- This general moral principle that we must not target innocent people has two exceptions. The first exception is that, in self-defense, we are permitted to kill people who are attacking us. The second exception is when, in war, we attack a legitimate military target (such as a vast enemy munitions depot whose destruction would cripple them), but during this attack, innocent people will inevitably be killed.

6- So there are two exceptions to the principle of the sanctity of life: one is defending one’s life and honor, and the other is when, during war and self-defense, we have no choice but to kill innocent people as a side effect. This holds true not only for military and police actions but also in other cases, such as the following: consider the pilot of a crashing plane who is forced to land either in a densely populated neighborhood or a sparsely populated one. The pilot ultimately lands the plane in a sparsely populated neighborhood, but in doing so, innocent people are killed. This act is not morally prohibited, provided that due care is taken to minimize the deaths of innocent people.

7- Both in self-defense and in the case of side effects, we are obligated to act in the best possible way to avoid or minimize civilian casualties in war, even if we know that such casualties cannot be completely avoided. The ultimate outcome is, of course, the death of innocent people, but our moral intuition draws a vast distinction between: a) innocent people deliberately killed by a terrorist; b) innocent people tragically killed as a side effect of a pilot’s decision to make an emergency landing in a sparsely populated neighborhood instead of a densely populated one.

8- So long as a vast disparity exists between the weak and the strong, and so long as the weak possess effective means to exert pressure on their powerful enemies, terrorism will not be eradicated or eliminated. Nevertheless, we must hope that certain forms of the degradation of humanity will be recognized, and that this recognition will not be lost as a result of terrorism's recent successes.