PH379 - The Philosophy of Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Terrorism and rationality

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If a particular action or belief is reasonable in the circumstances, the agent or believer must have good reasons for their action or belief. Such reasons are normative reasons: they favour the action or belief. Whether a person has reasons that favour a given action or belief depends on a range of internal and external factors, including prevailing norms of rationality but also the way the world is.

Terrorism, even suicide terrorism, can be a means for terrorists to get what they want. Terrorist acts can be instrumentally rational in some cases. Terrorism can be substantively rational, its ends are not necessarily irrational or perverse. The question of normative rationality arrives for terrorists rather than for terrorism.

Terrorists can be instrumentally rational. They can and sometimes do adopt means that are suitable to their ends. Suitable means efficacious. They can be substantively rational. Their ends are not necessarily irrational. Democracy or national liberation as possible ends. They can be normatively rational. They can have good reasons for believing what they believe and for doing what they do - at least good reasons in their circumstances.

Terrorism may not be a suitable means to the terrorist's ends and is generally less efficacious than non-violent means. In such cases, terrorists might still be instrumentally rational if their belief that terrorism is efficacious is a rational relief but in many cases they don't have good reasons to believe the efficacy of their terrorism.

Terrorists sometimes believe what they have no good reason to believe. What counts as a good reason is circumstance-dependent or perspective-dependent but only up to a point. What counts as a good reason for doing or believing something isn't a wholly subjective matter. Good reasons also have an objective dimension.

Some terrorists and terrorist organisations have objectives that are irrational and/or perverse. Hume: It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of my finger. But it is contrary to reason if the desire for the world's destruction is based on false or irrational beliefs - intrinsic vs derivative irrationality.