ABSTRACT
Perhaps the main obstacle to any agreement that terrorism may in some circumstances be morally justifiable lies in the claim that it involves the violation of the rights of innocent persons. No matter what can be said about terrorism in self-defense or as a possible way of contributing to various desirable consequences, or about the moral legitimacy of violence under certain circumstances, it is terrorism’s violation of the alleged rights of the allegedly innocent that seems to matter the most, and perhaps rightly so. Accordingly, in this chapter I shall consider certain questions about innocence, questions which I at least have found to be unexpectedly perplexing. What after all is an innocent person?
