Terrorism and Moral Distinctiveness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21371384 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brian Berkey (0000-0002-4527-027X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 665-681 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8191 • E-ISSN: 1469-817X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0031819125100946 |
| OpenAlex | W4415362471 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Most people believe that there is something particularly morally repugnant about terrorism. A number of philosophers have attempted to defend this widely held view by offering accounts of precisely what it is about terrorism that makes it morally distinctive. In this paper I raise some doubts about the accounts that have been defended by others, focusing in particular on Samuel Scheffler’s view. In light of the doubts that I raise about existing accounts, I suggest what must be done in order to arrive at an adequate account, and offer an outline of a view that seems to me promising. On the view that I suggest, terrorist acts reveal something of distinctive moral significance about the agents who perpetrate them, even if they are not in themselves morally worse than otherwise similar acts
Moral responsibility · Morality · Optimal distinctiveness theory · Order (exchange) · Terrorism · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence · Torture, Ethics, and Law · War, Ethics, and Justification
| Highly cited | No |
|---|