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Key research themes
1. How can terrorism be conceptually defined to ground meaningful ethical analysis?
This research theme focuses on the persistent challenges in defining terrorism with sufficient clarity and philosophical rigor to support coherent moral inquiry. Definitional ambiguities hinder effective ethical evaluations, legal adjudications, and policy responses, as terrorism often blends descriptive and evaluative elements, involving both fact and value judgments. Addressing these challenges is critical to differentiate terrorism from other violent acts, avoid ideological biases, and allow moral theorists and policymakers to assess the permissibility or impermissibility of particular terrorist acts or strategies.
Key finding: Proposes a novel definition of terrorism that dissociates terrorism’s moral status from definitional fiat, thus making the morality of terrorist acts subject to application of moral theories rather than inherent in the... Read more
Key finding: Offers a working definition conceptualizing terrorism as “systematically unsystematic” violence characterized by randomness or indiscrimination toward combatants and noncombatants alike. This captures terrorism’s distinctive... Read more
Key finding: Critically interrogates the fact/value dichotomy in conceptualizing terrorism as a thick ethical concept, arguing that the evaluative and descriptive aspects are inseparable and that defining terrorism requires acknowledging... Read more
Key finding: Identifies logical flaws in prevailing conceptualizations of the 'new terrorist' by exposing how quantitative differences (e.g., destructiveness, scale of goals) are misconstrued as qualitative distinctions. By refining the... Read more
2. What are the ethical justifications and critiques of terrorism as political violence?
This theme investigates under what conditions, if any, terrorism might be morally justifiable, situating the question within major ethical theories such as deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. It evaluates classic and contemporary arguments regarding self-defense, political liberation, the moral status of noncombatants, and issues of collective responsibility. Exploring these justifications informs normative frameworks for responding to terrorism and understanding its ethical complexity.
Key finding: Analyzes the limited conditions under deontological ethics—essentially self-defense against wrongful attack—under which political violence including terrorism may be justified, emphasizing strict moral constraints against... Read more
Key finding: Highlights the limitations of conventional moral reasoning to fully appreciate the 'virtues' of violent conflict, such as bravery, solidarity, and social regeneration, drawing on Sorel’s advocacy for the energizing and... Read more
Key finding: Offers a rigorous analytic defense that terrorism is almost always morally wrong but permits a highly restricted and narrowly defined exception—termed the 'moral disaster'—only when terrorism averts imminent extermination or... Read more
Key finding: Engages with post-9/11 debates revealing how conceptual difficulties in defining terrorism affect moral evaluations, reviewing major philosophical approaches and illustrating how definitions shape arguments about terrorism’s... Read more
Key finding: Provides an empirical-philosophical case study of the Baader-Meinhof group, illustrating the ethical dilemmas associated with supporting political prisoners who use terrorism as resistance. Sartre’s involvement exemplifies... Read more
3. Can terrorism be effectively modeled and understood through rational or scientific frameworks to inform counterterrorism?
This research direction examines terrorism through rational-choice, epidemiological, criminological, and sociological methodologies to model its evolution, recruitment dynamics, power structures, and social embeddedness. Understanding terrorist behavior as strategic and rational or influenced by social contagion informs policy design, counterterrorism strategies, and highlights the multifaceted interaction between ideology, social context, and organizational aims.
Key finding: Develops an analytical framework to reconstruct long-term terrorist strategies by integrating tactical inputs, targets, and ideological goals, asserting terrorists act rationally within their logic. This model facilitates... Read more
Key finding: Documents the emergence of terrorism as a mainstream criminological specialization, analyzing terrorism’s similarities and differences with ordinary crime through empirical study of attacks and offenders. The paper highlights... Read more
Key finding: Analyzes the impact of the 'war on terror' framing as a macro-ideological construct shaping media representations and policy, often simplifying complex, culturally specific violent acts into a global narrative. This critique... Read more