On 1 January of this year, an American man drove his pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans (Louisiana, US). Fifteen people were killed and dozens of others injured. The perpetrator, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a resident of Houston (Texas), was inspired by the Islamic State\u2019s violent extremist ideology. In response to this cruel attack and the suffering it brought about, New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said: \u201cThis is not just an act of terrorism. This is evil.\u201d New Orleans city council member Oliver Thomas went even further and commented: \u201cRemember there is no making sense of evil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Use of the phrase \u2018evil\u2019 is in fact quite common when it comes to terrorism. More precisely in a threefold way. First, terrorists themselves regularly use the term \u2018evil\u2019 to describe what they are fighting and to justify their violent deeds. The Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, for instance, in his manifesto 1983: A European Declaration of Independence <\/em>(2011), uses the term dozens of time to characterize such phenomena as Islam, liberalism, and the European Union. Second, practitioners, policy makers, and politicians frequently employ the notion of evil to describe what they are combating. George Bush for instance, famously spoke of \u201can axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.\u201d Third, even academics studying terorrism regularly use the term \u2018evil\u2019 to qualify terrorism, witness such book titles as Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide<\/em> (by Claudia Card) and Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism<\/em> (by Ervin Staub). But what exactly is it to say that terrorism or a specific act of terrorism is evil and does it follow that we cannot make sense of such acts?<\/p>\n I think most of us would agree that using a pickup truck to run over innocent people is evil. Perhaps not as evil as anything could possibly be; maybe torturing people because one ejoys it or burning people alive, as the Islamic State did, is even more evil. Still, it is evil. However, saying that a terrorist attack like that which occurred in New Orleans is evil, questions some of our philosophical and theological theories about evil.<\/p>\n According to Neo-Platonism, for instance, evil is not so much the actual presence of something bad, but the absence or non-existence of something that is good (often captured by the Latin phrase privatio boni<\/em>). Evil, thus, is the privation of substance, form, and goodness. Illness, for instance, is just the absence of health and sin the absence of virtue. Well-known Neo-Platonists who proposed theories along these lines were Plotinus, Clement of Alexandra, and perhaps most famous of all, Augustine of Hippo, who famously said: \u201cFor what is that which we call evil but the absence of good?\u201d (in his Enchiridion<\/em>, chapter XI) One clear problem here is that in calling acts of terrorism evil, such as the New Orleans attack, we do not merely want to say that they display the absence of goodness or virtue. Rather, they our point seems to be that they actively display something bad, cruel, horrendous. We witness the presence and substance of something we abhor, and we feel we truly need the notion of evil to describe what is going on in such situations.<\/p>\n Another philosophical theory of evil that descriptions of terrorism in terms of evil question, is that of Immanuel Kant. According to Kant, our will is morally good if we perform a right action precisely because it is right. In his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone<\/em>, Kant explains that this means that evil kan take three forms: (i) one sets out to do the morally right thing because one knows it is morally right, but one does not carry through with it (a mild version of evil), or (ii) one seeks to do the morally right thing but at least partially for reasons that have nothing to do with its moral rightness (e.g. making money), or (iii) one does not do the morally right thing because one prioritizes one\u2019s self over the moral law (Kant calls this \u2018radical evil\u2019). There is also the metaphysical possibility of doing evil for evil\u2019s sake, but that, according to Kant, is impossible for humans\u2014only the devil can do that. Thus, whereas Neo-Platonism provides primarily a theory of the nature of evil<\/em>, this view of Kant is perhaps better understood as a theory of motivations for <\/em>evil. One may wonder whether this theory matches what we see in terrorist attacks such as that in New Orleans. The attack was in all regards morally wrong, so (i) is not an option. The attack was carried out on the basis of moral considerations, such as the alleged sexual perversity of Americans, so (ii) is not an option either. And it seems Shamsud-Din Jabbar did not prioritize himself over his moral reasons\u2014in fact, he was willing to sacrifice his life for his moral cause. And, yet, what he did seems deeply evil. Perhaps, then, Kant\u2019s theory of the motivations for evil acts is incomplete. And it raises further questions about Shamsud-Din Jabbar\u2019s moral state of mind: Did he do evil for the sake of evil? Did he do evil while falsely (presumably culpably) believing that what he did was right and even morally mandatory? Could he perhaps have had both of these motivations simulatenously? These are important philosophical questions about such terrorist acts.<\/p>\n Things also hold the other way around: our philosophical and theological theories of evil can question the statements concerning evil that we make about an evil like the terrorist attack in New Orleans. Remember that city council member Oliver Thomas commented that we cannot make sense of evil. What exactly does that mean and why should we think that we cannot make any sense of evil?<\/p>\n There are indeed influential philosophical and theological theories of evil that characterize evil partly in terms of its alleged incomprehensibility. These are sometimes called specific varieties of \u2018bystander accounts\u2019. The idea is that what renders some act evil is not a feature of that act itself but a feature of those who witness the act, such as that they respond with feelings of horor and disgust or that they cannot comprehend the act in any way. Charlotte Delbo, for instance, speaks of attempts to explain evil as \u201cexplaining the inexplicable\u201d. Susan Neiman in her book Evil in Modern Thought also develops an account in terms of incomprehensibility. And Paul Ricoeur\u2019s theory of evil as absurd might also fall under this heading.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Oliver Thomas, then, voiced an idea that can also be found in philosophical theorizing. But what exactly does the unintelligibility or incomprehensibility that they refer to amount to? It does not mean that we cannot at least partially explain <\/em>why Shamsud-Din Jabbar committed this terrorist attack. After all, the literature is rife with valuable attempts to explain terrorism. In Jabbar\u2019s case, that could amount to an explanation in terms of, say, his three failed marriages, his financial problems, his rejection of Western values (his denouncement of Western music and the use of alcohol and marijuana), inspiration from ISIS ideology, and so on. Perhaps what it means is rather that we cannot make sense of his actions from a first-person point of view. Perhaps we can explain his behavior (Erkl\u00e4ren<\/em>), but we cannot understand it (Verstehen<\/em>). Even that is a too quick, though. It is getting more common in the field of terrorism studies to do qualitiative field work and ask (former) terrorists why they performed the actions that they did. This has resulted in such things Scott Atran\u2019s theory in terms of sacred values and Beatrice de Graaf\u2019s Radical Redemption Model for Jihadis\u2019 radicalization. By carefully listening to terrorists, we have come to understand more about their deeper reasons and motivations in performing their deeds. Perhaps, then, what is meant is not so much that we cannot acquire first-person understanding, but that we cannot acquire emphathetic<\/em> understanding: even if we somehow imagine ourselves in their circumstances, we could not possibly imagine ourselves performing these actions. If that is indeed the case, that raises further questions: Does this hold for all terrorists?, Does this hold for all of us or only some of us, and If we cannot do so, exactly why is that?<\/p>\n Exactly how terrorism relates to evil, then, is a rich and important research topic that deserves much more rigorous empirical and philosophical work.<\/p>\n Photo: New Orleans French Quarter by Joanne C. Sullivan on Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Prof. dr. Rik Peels holds a University Research Chair in Analytic and Interdisciplinary Philosophy of Religion at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and leads the ERC-funded <\/em>Extreme Beliefs project<\/em><\/a>. Email: <\/em>h.d.peels@vu.nl<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 1 January of this year, an American man drove his pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans (Louisiana, US). Fifteen people were killed and dozens […]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":2192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Rik Peels \"Terrorism and Evil\" on Open for Debate","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[481,419,365],"custom_author":[482],"class_list":["post-2188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-evil","tag-extremism","tag-terrorism","custom_author-rik-peels"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-zi","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1569,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/what-is-an-act-of-terrorism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2188,"position":0},"title":"Philosophizing about Terrorism","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"One evening almost exactly fifty years ago, a group of men and women in balaclavas abducted Mrs Jean McConville from her home in West Belfast. McConville, whose husband had died of cancer, had ten children who had to fend for themselves after their mother\u2019s disappearance. It took years for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/balaclava-photo-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/balaclava-photo-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/balaclava-photo-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/balaclava-photo-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/balaclava-photo-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/11\/balaclava-photo-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1891,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/fundamentalism-as-a-contested-concept\/","url_meta":{"origin":2188,"position":1},"title":"Fundamentalism as a contested concept","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"February 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Fundamentalism is a contested concept. In ordinary language and public discourse, it is applied to actions, beliefs, or groups that we condemn, disagree with, or wish to delegitimize. Highly mediatized examples include Hamas, the Taliban, and the Iranian government and clergy, but also Hindu nationalist RSS, Jewish settlers, and Trump\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/02\/jr-korpa-_ZNLoTRTEKs-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1507,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/why-care-about-knowledge\/","url_meta":{"origin":2188,"position":2},"title":"WHY CARE ABOUT KNOWLEDGE?","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"August 22, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We care about knowledge. Given a choice between getting information about my illness from a doctor or a quack, I\u2019d always go with the doctor. Why? Because, unlike the quack, the doctor knows what they are talking about. Explaining what the value of knowledge consists in is one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/08\/siora.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/08\/siora.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/08\/siora.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1173,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/normative-entanglement-in-public-discourse-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":2188,"position":3},"title":"Normative Entanglement in Public Discourse (Part 1)","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"April 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In an episode of The West Wing, a comment is made to the press that the fictional US President, Josiah Bartlett, is not particularly fond of green beans.[1] On the day in question, the president\u2019s staff confront the usual mayhem of low- and high-octane problems, among them the problem of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/151872.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/151872.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/04\/151872.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1817,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/extremism-and-the-good-life-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2188,"position":4},"title":"Extremism and the Good Life – Part 2","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 13, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"In the previous post I have argued that we need to adopt\u00a0 a more complex picture of extremists. They are intellectual and practical agents responsive to both intellectual and practical goods. We need to consider how these dimensions interact. How do the practical benefits of extremism interfere with attempts at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/Broken-Statue-Black-and-White-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/Broken-Statue-Black-and-White-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/Broken-Statue-Black-and-White-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/Broken-Statue-Black-and-White-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/Broken-Statue-Black-and-White-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/Broken-Statue-Black-and-White-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1547,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/the-social-roots-of-irrationality\/","url_meta":{"origin":2188,"position":5},"title":"The Social Roots of Irrationality","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"October 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Many animals navigate their environments with the use of internal models. It is tempting to think of human beliefs as just a highly complex example of this strategy. On this view, our beliefs are \u2013 to quote the philosopher Frank Ramsey \u2013 the \u201cmaps by which we steer.\u201d Like maps,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/10\/charlesdeluvio-AT5vuPoi8vc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/10\/charlesdeluvio-AT5vuPoi8vc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/10\/charlesdeluvio-AT5vuPoi8vc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/10\/charlesdeluvio-AT5vuPoi8vc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/10\/charlesdeluvio-AT5vuPoi8vc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/10\/charlesdeluvio-AT5vuPoi8vc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2025\/01\/New_orleans_12279946665_e7faf93133_c.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions\/2193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}