Can Terrorism Be Morally Justified Research Paper

Yania Yanez

March 26,2015

Ethics and Critical Thinking, TR 9:50

Professor Jay S. Graves

Can Terrorism Be Morally Justified?

Terrorism can be defined as the usage of threats and violence in order to intimidate another country for political purposes. There are many different types of terrorism such as: cyberterrorism, bioterrorism, nuclear terrorism, and etc. While some people or groups perform the act of terrorism for religious reasons, others do it in order to gain political power. Whether the act is due to religious reasons or for political reasons, the real question is – can terrorism be morally justified? In my honest opinion, I think that terrorism cannot be morally justified. There are other ways to obtain political power that don’t include

Villalobos: How so?

Jonathan: Well I am against terrorism and think that there is no way of morally justifying such an action.

Ms. Villalobos: No way of morally justifying the action? Sometimes terrorism is the only option we have! While there are many countries that are known for their terrorist attacks such as: Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan; the United States has also committed its own terrorist attacks.

Jonathan: But Ms. Villalobos, how are you fine with the fact that while these terrorist attacks are being done, thousands of innocent people are killed. For example: Lets go back to September 11, 2oo1 when the two towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were hit by three planes. The three planes were controlled by a terrorist group known as the al-Qaeda. The terrorist attack killed more than 3,000 innocent people including 400 firefighters and police officers. This was a very tragic day that killed many innocent people. How can you say that this kind of behavior and action can be morally

Or that since the attack is done out of revenge it is morally justified? So let’s say that there is this married couple called Jessica and Daniel that have been happily married for 25 years. One day Jessica decides to come home early in order to start dinner early. She walks into the house where she starts to hear moaning sounds coming from her bedroom. As she opens the door she finds her husband cheating on her with her best friend. Out of revenge and anger she ends up killing both of them. Since Jessica did this out of revenge does it makes it morally right? No, at the end of the day what she still committed murder and still deserves to pay the