ABSTRACT
Thinking about terrorism in the context of crimes against global civil society also chimes with the greater internationalization of the fight against terrorism that has emerged since 11 September. Previously terrorism had, by and large, been treated as a domestic policy matter. For a start, 'terrorism' and hence the 'War on Terror' are morally loaded terms and their very application implies the making of moral judgments. The claim about the ultimate indispensability of moral conviction and judgment in human experience dovetails with a claim that some definite moral convictions are actually indispensable in the business of justifying morality. This chapter argues that 'historical-political understanding's' attempted avoidance of moral judgmentalism fails on numerous scores. Global civil society has no specific ends of its own to pursue beyond the facilitation of its members' variegated ways of life in a manner which allows people to exercise their rights.
