ABSTRACT
This chapter looks that whether there is anything conceptually distinctive about terrorism and whether there is anything morally distinctive about terrorism. It is to the idea of terrorism as non-state violence that we now turn. Surprisingly, it is the 'terror' part of terrorism that is often neglected in accounts of terrorism, which tend to focus more on the targets and political objectives of terrorists. It is the intentional aspect of the killings, rather than the killing themselves, that is the focus of most people's condemnation of terrorism. The chapter also examined both the nature and the morality of terrorism. Then it moved from considering the conceptual nature of terrorism to examining the moral nature of terrorism. The final part of the chapter, explains at the sorts of causes that might warrant terrorism, and considered Smilansky's suggestion that the risks of trying to justify terrorism are so great that we ought simply to prohibit it absolutely.
