Laurie Calhoun - OUTLINE

Laurie Calhoun: The Terrorist’s Tacit Message (in James E. White text)

Her core assumption: INTENTIONS don’t matter.

Terrorism = politically motivated KILLING (or threatened killing) of innocent people

Terrorism is simply war carried to its “logical conclusion” (In other words, there is no logical distinction available to distinguish between military engagement and terrorism)

Central points in the “logic” of war:

Recognizes that just war requires proportionality: we can engage in war only when the alternative (no war) is worse.
Just war theory “condones” (permits) the killing of innocent people as collateral damage.

HER ARGUMENT: if we have a “right” to wage war because we believe we’ve satisfied the requirements of a just war, then everyone who believes that they’ve satisfied these conditions has the same right to wage war.

(MY COMMENT: It's a "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" argument!)

By their actions, terrorists are telling us that they believe they have a just war, too.

As with military strikes, terrorists kill civilians because this is their “last resort” in the face of forces that will not address their just cause.

Conclusion: we should give up our assumption that we are morally better than terrorists.

Response: this is a caricature of the doctrine of just war, completely dissolving the traditional distinction between having a just cause and having a good intention. Furthermore, there is no attention to the doctrine of double effect as a serious moral limit on the permissibility of targets and collateral damage.