Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 41
The one who has to suffer this impact of this force has no choice except to endure this
misery. Such an act of violence thus represents a deed that runs counter to the victim‘s
inclinations and wellbeing.[20] This aspect is especially in the foreground of terrorist action,
as terrorism does not forebear to risk the lives and physical wellbeing of innocent people
who are not the least related to the violence and force used against them.
In the abstract, violence can be defined as the forceful encroachment upon the sphere of
one individual‘s legitimate development of his free will. This makes it to conceive why the
question of right and wrong is determined from the perspective of the victim who has to
sustain a restraining and debilitating effect on his organism and thus its free self-
development. This direct idea of violence comprises a clear relation between a perpetrator
and a victim, with the perpetrator directly inflicting damage on the victim. This damage
primarily violates the victim‘s organism or its free self-determination.
Physical force finds its most profound manifestation in armed conflict and war. Criminal
violence certainly comes closest to it. Nevertheless, terrorist violence—not only because of
the self-awareness of the terrorist that he is ―at war,‖ but also because of the extent of
damage inflicted by terrorist actions—should be categorized as war-like violence. It is,
therefore, for this part of the investigation, reasonable to define terrorist violence as a form
of crime or as an act similar to war.
Normatively speaking, injustice is the confinement of one‘s development of freedom without
the existence of an external necessity. In this philosophical sense, external necessity can
only be thought as a morally justifiable reason simply because in a possible moral and
ethical framework of actions where the application of violence and force comes into play,
just by rational conclusion, only actions are conceivable in which force appears either
together with (moral) injustice, with (moral) justice or—as sanctioning and punishing
power—in connection with positive, statutory national or international law.
If we leave aside the latter point insofar as terrorism positions itself extra legem anyway,
what is left for closer examination is the question if terrorist violence can be morally
justified at all and, under what conditions and criteria, if any, it can claim morality and
moral legitimacy.
Force and (Political) Justice
Let me emphasize again: Injustice emerges when the development of the freedom of an
individual or group of individuals is being constrained by another or others, without the
existence of a morally justifiable necessity. The borderline at which right passes over into
wrong exactly marks the line of demarcation at which we encounter the normative idea of
justice. From the viewpoint of a merely rational deduction, the notion of (individual, social,
political, intrastate, interstate …) justice becomes the normative, cardinal aspect of ethics,
transforming into ―the inevitable criterion for any claim that wishes to correspond with the
idea of morality.‖[21]
The category of justice, therefore, embodies the only parameter that can be reconciled with
the rights of the subject, the predominance of the individual including his claim for self-
determination, and also with the guiding image of modern philosophy and ethics, freedom.
A violation of the guiding principle of ethics, justice—practically, the commitment of
injustice—must, therefore, stem from exaggerated egotism, an over-emphasized affirmation
of one‘s own will, which negates the sphere of right of another individual, in the sense of not
taking into account the legitimate development of another‘s free will.
According to this depiction, which introduces right and wrong as moral categories and
relates them to ―man as man,‖ we are being offered a perspective which, bare of any
The one who has to suffer this impact of this force has no choice except to endure this
misery. Such an act of violence thus represents a deed that runs counter to the victim‘s
inclinations and wellbeing.[20] This aspect is especially in the foreground of terrorist action,
as terrorism does not forebear to risk the lives and physical wellbeing of innocent people
who are not the least related to the violence and force used against them.
In the abstract, violence can be defined as the forceful encroachment upon the sphere of
one individual‘s legitimate development of his free will. This makes it to conceive why the
question of right and wrong is determined from the perspective of the victim who has to
sustain a restraining and debilitating effect on his organism and thus its free self-
development. This direct idea of violence comprises a clear relation between a perpetrator
and a victim, with the perpetrator directly inflicting damage on the victim. This damage
primarily violates the victim‘s organism or its free self-determination.
Physical force finds its most profound manifestation in armed conflict and war. Criminal
violence certainly comes closest to it. Nevertheless, terrorist violence—not only because of
the self-awareness of the terrorist that he is ―at war,‖ but also because of the extent of
damage inflicted by terrorist actions—should be categorized as war-like violence. It is,
therefore, for this part of the investigation, reasonable to define terrorist violence as a form
of crime or as an act similar to war.
Normatively speaking, injustice is the confinement of one‘s development of freedom without
the existence of an external necessity. In this philosophical sense, external necessity can
only be thought as a morally justifiable reason simply because in a possible moral and
ethical framework of actions where the application of violence and force comes into play,
just by rational conclusion, only actions are conceivable in which force appears either
together with (moral) injustice, with (moral) justice or—as sanctioning and punishing
power—in connection with positive, statutory national or international law.
If we leave aside the latter point insofar as terrorism positions itself extra legem anyway,
what is left for closer examination is the question if terrorist violence can be morally
justified at all and, under what conditions and criteria, if any, it can claim morality and
moral legitimacy.
Force and (Political) Justice
Let me emphasize again: Injustice emerges when the development of the freedom of an
individual or group of individuals is being constrained by another or others, without the
existence of a morally justifiable necessity. The borderline at which right passes over into
wrong exactly marks the line of demarcation at which we encounter the normative idea of
justice. From the viewpoint of a merely rational deduction, the notion of (individual, social,
political, intrastate, interstate …) justice becomes the normative, cardinal aspect of ethics,
transforming into ―the inevitable criterion for any claim that wishes to correspond with the
idea of morality.‖[21]
The category of justice, therefore, embodies the only parameter that can be reconciled with
the rights of the subject, the predominance of the individual including his claim for self-
determination, and also with the guiding image of modern philosophy and ethics, freedom.
A violation of the guiding principle of ethics, justice—practically, the commitment of
injustice—must, therefore, stem from exaggerated egotism, an over-emphasized affirmation
of one‘s own will, which negates the sphere of right of another individual, in the sense of not
taking into account the legitimate development of another‘s free will.
According to this depiction, which introduces right and wrong as moral categories and
relates them to ―man as man,‖ we are being offered a perspective which, bare of any
