This chapter deals with three issues: (1) how best to define terrorism, (2) whether terrorism is ever defensible, and (3) whether female terrorists should be held to the same standards of moral responsibility for their terrorist acts as are male terrorists.

Defining Terrorism

The word “terrorism” and its cognates have been defined in a great variety of ways. A famous study published in 1983 found 109 different definitions of terrorism already available, some of them scholarly, some political, and some legal. Commentators continue to disagree about what is the best definition.

How terrorism is to be defined is a question of practical significance and not merely theoretical interest. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1373, which imposes obligations on states to oppose terrorist activity in a variety of ways, including trying to bring it to an end, punish it, and prevent it from happening in the future. These requirements are issued internationally as uniform obligations on states, so the efforts by various states to comply with the requirements should cohere legally. Yet without a shared definition of terrorism, each state would be acting on a unilateral definition. The resulting state efforts against terrorism might not be mutually consistent or coherent. Also, in particular cases, disputes might arise as to which persons or groups are terrorists and whether particular actions are genuine incidents of terrorism or merely domestic crimes.

In recommending to would-be princes how best to consolidate their power, Machiavelli posed the rhetorical question as to whether it was better to rule by being loved or by being feared by a populace. Machiavelli answered that it was best to rule by promoting both attitudes, but that if a ruler had to choose, he should choose to rule through fear, “for love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.” Machiavelli was an astute observer of human motivation, missing only that love can sometimes be grounded on fear.

Fear of other persons can have a major impact on how we live our lives. When we have to cope on a chronic basis with people who threaten to harm us, we are less able to do what we want or value, or what really matters to us. Such fears can deeply affect our capacity to live and choose autonomously. In the face of threats from those we fear, we may have to devote ourselves to self-defense and, perhaps, even to simple self-preservation. Not only do a person's particular choices and actions change as a result of her fear of others; her entire character may become distorted by the need for heightened vigilance and frequent self-defense.

There are many situations and relationships in the world that put certain people in chronic fear of certain other people.

Feminist ethics

Ethics, or moral philosophy, as a field of intellectual inquiry developed in the west for well over two thousand years with minimal input from women. Women's voices have been virtually absent from western ethics until this century, as they have been from every field of intellectual endeavour. The absence of female voices has meant that the moral concerns of men have preoccupied traditional western ethics, the moral perspectives of men have shaped its methods and concepts, and male biases against women have gone virtually unchallenged within it. Feminist ethics explores the substantive effect of this imbalance on moral philosophy and seeks to rectify it.

Like other areas of feminist thought, feminist ethics is grounded in a commitment to ending the oppression, subordination, abuse and exploitation of women and girls, wherever these may arise. In the late 1960s, when feminist ethics began, it consisted mainly of applying the resources of traditional moral philosophy to the array of moral issues that were being brought to public attention by the women's movements then arising in many western societies.