Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 43
Short of a more or less direct relation between perpetrator and victim, the principle of
appropriate and proportionate usage of means is at the core of moral and ethical
consideration when it comes to the legitimization of forceful actions.
The Ethical Illegitimacy of Terrorist Violence
It is not only that the terrorist disregards the inevitable principle of the immediacy of
perpetrator-victim relation, and the issues of inevitability and unavoidability, as well as the
proportionality of means, but he bases his actions upon a pattern of causal rectification that
can never be ethically justified, and thus has to be classified as morally illegitimate. To
finally clarify the conditions of factual or presumed injustice against which forceful means
might be used—and why terrorist violence never meets these criteria and thus embodies
moral wrong in every case—makes it inevitable to analyze the sphere of wrong and injustice
in greater detail.
When it comes to decisions relevant to human actions, man finds himself always in a
dilemma in the sense of conflicting interests, which can be resolved only by a consideration
of interests according to ethical principles. Related to the question of an order of priority
between possible goods and values that have a bearing on a morally relevant decision, it is
Franz Böckle who introduces a helpful differentiation by distinguishing the principle of
―Fundamentality‖ from the principle of ―Dignity.‖[24] The principle of fundamentality, on the
one hand, favors that good which is a necessary precondition for the realization of another
one. The principle of dignity, on the other hand, structures the values according to their
meaningfulness, and brings the fundamental goods in a moral and ethical context of
meaningful priorities. Goods are physical entities existing independently of our individual
intentions and are given to us as indispensable factors for our responsible actions. These
factors include our physical integrity, mental or physical property, in addition, also
institutional dimensions of life, such as matrimony, family, and state. Values, in contrast,
are certain stereotyped attitudes or virtues, which can only be considered real inasmuch as
they are qualities of human volition for example the subjective understanding of justice,
faith, or solidarity. Consequently, whenever a morally relevant deed is demanded, the
acting individual finds himself in a situation of choice. He has to choose between values and
goods that are in a permanent constellation of competition among each other. The human
being, thus, finds himself always in a dilemma as to which option he should choose in the
constantly conflicting set of alternatives. Viewed negatively, an ethical choice inevitably
means to choose the lesser of two evils.
These helpful considerations can now, through the insights of Wolfgang Kersting, be placed
into the context of the philosophy of international relations, within which terrorism is acting.
Kersting introduces a distinction between programmatic and transcendental rights (claims
for freedom). Transcendental rights—following Kant‘s definition of ‗transcendental‘ as being
the condition of experience at all—are immediate human rights such as the right to live and
enjoy physical integrity, which are the conditions necessary for the possibility to experience
other rights and freedoms anyway. Beside these transcendental primary rights, we find then
the programmatic rights. These are, so to say, secondary rights, such as political self-
determination, democratic living conditions, just distribution of goods etc.[25] It is precisely
here, where terrorism does not take these rights into account (or intentionally or
unintentionally disregards these normative principles), that terrorism becomes devoid of
any serious ethics. Terrorism does not hesitate to set secondary rights, such as political
self-determination, or the implementation of a desired political or social order, absolute—at
the cost of ignoring and neglecting primary (transcendental) rights. In doing so terrorism
not only turns the logical principle of the predominance of transcendental rights upside
down, it also negates the predominant fundamental right to live, as this plays no role in
terrorist rationales—neither in the sense of being a physical cause or motive to reflect its
own maxim.
Short of a more or less direct relation between perpetrator and victim, the principle of
appropriate and proportionate usage of means is at the core of moral and ethical
consideration when it comes to the legitimization of forceful actions.
The Ethical Illegitimacy of Terrorist Violence
It is not only that the terrorist disregards the inevitable principle of the immediacy of
perpetrator-victim relation, and the issues of inevitability and unavoidability, as well as the
proportionality of means, but he bases his actions upon a pattern of causal rectification that
can never be ethically justified, and thus has to be classified as morally illegitimate. To
finally clarify the conditions of factual or presumed injustice against which forceful means
might be used—and why terrorist violence never meets these criteria and thus embodies
moral wrong in every case—makes it inevitable to analyze the sphere of wrong and injustice
in greater detail.
When it comes to decisions relevant to human actions, man finds himself always in a
dilemma in the sense of conflicting interests, which can be resolved only by a consideration
of interests according to ethical principles. Related to the question of an order of priority
between possible goods and values that have a bearing on a morally relevant decision, it is
Franz Böckle who introduces a helpful differentiation by distinguishing the principle of
―Fundamentality‖ from the principle of ―Dignity.‖[24] The principle of fundamentality, on the
one hand, favors that good which is a necessary precondition for the realization of another
one. The principle of dignity, on the other hand, structures the values according to their
meaningfulness, and brings the fundamental goods in a moral and ethical context of
meaningful priorities. Goods are physical entities existing independently of our individual
intentions and are given to us as indispensable factors for our responsible actions. These
factors include our physical integrity, mental or physical property, in addition, also
institutional dimensions of life, such as matrimony, family, and state. Values, in contrast,
are certain stereotyped attitudes or virtues, which can only be considered real inasmuch as
they are qualities of human volition for example the subjective understanding of justice,
faith, or solidarity. Consequently, whenever a morally relevant deed is demanded, the
acting individual finds himself in a situation of choice. He has to choose between values and
goods that are in a permanent constellation of competition among each other. The human
being, thus, finds himself always in a dilemma as to which option he should choose in the
constantly conflicting set of alternatives. Viewed negatively, an ethical choice inevitably
means to choose the lesser of two evils.
These helpful considerations can now, through the insights of Wolfgang Kersting, be placed
into the context of the philosophy of international relations, within which terrorism is acting.
Kersting introduces a distinction between programmatic and transcendental rights (claims
for freedom). Transcendental rights—following Kant‘s definition of ‗transcendental‘ as being
the condition of experience at all—are immediate human rights such as the right to live and
enjoy physical integrity, which are the conditions necessary for the possibility to experience
other rights and freedoms anyway. Beside these transcendental primary rights, we find then
the programmatic rights. These are, so to say, secondary rights, such as political self-
determination, democratic living conditions, just distribution of goods etc.[25] It is precisely
here, where terrorism does not take these rights into account (or intentionally or
unintentionally disregards these normative principles), that terrorism becomes devoid of
any serious ethics. Terrorism does not hesitate to set secondary rights, such as political
self-determination, or the implementation of a desired political or social order, absolute—at
the cost of ignoring and neglecting primary (transcendental) rights. In doing so terrorism
not only turns the logical principle of the predominance of transcendental rights upside
down, it also negates the predominant fundamental right to live, as this plays no role in
terrorist rationales—neither in the sense of being a physical cause or motive to reflect its
own maxim.
