Is assassination better than terrorism?

[selfAdjoint]

For the purposes of this discussion consider assassination to be the killing of a specific individual for reasons connected to that individual, while terrorism is to be considered the killing of random individuals for reasons that have no specific relevance to the individuals killed.

 

[turbo]

A person who participates in a terrorist enterprise may have any number of motivations, and their "targets" may or may not be culpable.

A person who plans an assassination is motivated to kill a certain individual, and presumably their target is culpable, in their estimation.

Who are we to make a moral distinction between a person who kills many innocents to achieve a political end, or someone who arranges for certain specific people to be killed to achieve a political end?

 

[Pengwuino]

I say assassination is morally better simply because there maaaaay be reasons such a thing might a good thing where as the killing of random people has no justification. It's pretty hard to compare but I guess if you have to, assassinations are a bit better...

 

[Rade]

Both are immoral by any logical definition of morality.

 

[emrandel]

It is only the goal/result that is relevant when looking back (following the event) that matters, the way it is achieved is rather irrelevant unless it effects you personally.

 

[Sir_Deenicus]

I certainly don't have any training in this area so please forgive my naivety.

If one considers one and the other as amorally unforgivable as the other, then in terms of pure weight Id have to go with terrorism as it affects more people and causes more widespread despair,suffering and damage.

Following that thought direction... What if you knew a baby, your child maybe, would grow up to be a terrorist that would kill millions. What would you do?

 

[emrandel]

"Following that thought direction... What if you knew a baby, your child maybe, would grow up to be a terrorist that would kill millions. What would you do?"

Well, it depends, if it's politics were in order with mine... I would go along with it, even mentor it's outlook while it grew to hate what it would one day destroy. If it was a threat to me, that'd be one dead baby.

 

[blackmama]

it depends on what you think is terrorism and assassination. look what's happening today, everyone ganging up on iraq, howcome no one ever says bush or that english dude's a terrorrist? if you were living in iraq i think u would think america was terrorr country. and am starting to believe them... but that's my oppinoun

 

[russ_watters]

Who are we to make a moral distinction between a person who kills many innocents to achieve a political end, or someone who arranges for certain specific people to be killed to achieve a political end?

Everyone makes personal moral judgements. Who are we to do that? We are people with moral beliefs that require it.

Both are immoral by any logical definition of morality.

The OP was not very specific, terrorism and assassination are different things (and because of that, I voted that they can't be compared), but certainly there are instances where assassination is not merely better, but actually morally right (under most major moral codes). The usual example: it would have been morally right to assassinate Hitler during WWII.

Terrorism, on the other hand, is never morally right.

 

[russ_watters]

it depends on what you think is terrorism and assassination. look what's happening today, everyone ganging up on iraq, howcome no one ever says bush or that english dude's a terrorrist? if you were living in iraq i think u would think america was terrorr country. and am starting to believe them... but that's my oppinoun

Don't obfuscate the issue by arguing against definitions. Definitions are definitions. Assume that the OP was using the most common/accepted definitions of the words.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I thought I was perfectly specific. I did not discuss different motives because that was not what I wanted to discuss. The question was whether killing one individual for some reason connected with that individual was morally different from random killing for some reason that was not otherwise connectied to the killing (or perhaps, for no purpose at all, if you can envision that). What part of this don't people understand?

 

[scott1]

Assantion is only targeting one person at a time.Terroism is killing hunderds of untargeted people at time just because you hate them for reason and you don't really care who there only that's targting the gourp that you hate

 

[russ_watters]

What part of this don't people understand?

It isn't that it is hard to understand, it's just that the reason for just about any action is critical to determining the morality of the action. Because of that, assassinating Hitler because he is leading a war of conquest/genocide is clearly a morally right thing to do while assassinating him long before the war simply for being an anti-semite would not be morally right.

With terrorism, the victims are, by definition, innocent and because of that, killing them is always wrong.

I thought I was perfectly specific. I did not discuss different motives because that was not what I wanted to discuss.

It is your prerogrative since you started the thread, but not discussing different (ie, specific) motives is not being specific, it's being general. And that's why the answer isn't a simple yes or no, but a "depends on the specifics".

 

[JonahHex]

With terrorism, the victims are, by definition, innocent and because of that, killing them is always wrong.
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And that's why the answer isn't a simple yes or no, but a "depends on the specifics".

"Innocent"? In whose eyes?

After all, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

Is terrorism different from simultaneous assassination?

In war, I've always found the concept of "innocent civilians" to be rather far fetched, if not amusing. Is the pregnant wife of the guy who is shooting at me innocent? ...or is she "manufacturing replacement parts" for the enemy? Is the farmer who is growing food to feed the guy who is shooting at me innocent? Is the bank teller innocent? ...or is he abetting the financing of the effort to kill me?

 

[/0]

I believe there should be a level of civility in common with mankind, and anything that upsets that beyond simple annoyance should be destroyed, without a second thought. I will tolerate all kinds of speech, but I will not tolerate violence towards myself, or my 'team'.

My team is civilization.

If we all lived by that, there'd be no terrorists, so sorry for terrorists.


M

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I voted Assasination to be preferable to Terrorism.

The use of violence towards any person is only justifiable if that person is a direct threat (per at least my own ethical standards). The ethical justification for assasination rests on just how "direct" a threat that person is. Even though an argument must be made to illustrate the directness of that threat, and such an argument may fail, at least the individual who perpetrated such an action was mindful of the ethical rule.
One who kills people who are not even directly connected with the threat which motivates the action are in an obvious breech of the ethical rule. Considering this there is no possibility of argument for justification if we hold to the rule I postulated. Since there isn't even the possibility of justification the breech is that much more egregious.

Hassan Sabbah had leaders assasinated and spared the people under their rule of a war. Unfortunately I think that he may have started the trend of blindly faithful suicide attackers at the same time.

 

[uranium138]

Is war then terrorism? because war is just killing random people; so why is then going to war against innocent people acceptable and terrrorism not? (not that i agree with either)

 

[DrDeath]

both the act of terrorism and the act of assasination are in most situations morally wrong and therefore neither is better than the other, however sometimes assasination is morally right, the hitler example is perfect as hitler could be classed as a terrorist (he killed many innocent people for political gains) so assasinating him would have ended needless suffering therefore it would be morally right.

and war is not terrorism as it is directed at specific countrys or governments, yes random innocent people get killed but they are not intentionally targeted, terorrism is intentionally targeted randomly in order to cause maximum terror. hence the fact that war is initiated by legitimate governments against other governments/countrys whereas terorism is not.

 

[russ_watters]

Is war then terrorism? because war is just killing random people; so why is then going to war against innocent people acceptable and terrrorism not? (not that i agree with either)

Since when is war "just killing random people"? Typically in war, (especially when adhering to the laws of war), the targets are quite specific.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Since when is war "just killing random people"? Typically in war, (especially when adhering to the laws of war), the targets are quite specific.

This raises the interesting case where a nation-state directs a strike in a foreign country intended to kill a high profile terrorist or suborner of terrorism against its people. Such strike typically involve the undirected but entirely predictable deaths of random collateral innocents. The intent of the strike is assassination, i.e. the policy driven killing of a public figure, but the execution of the strike could be viewed by some as a form of terrorism, the effects on the population surrounding the target individual being an acceptible secondary policy to the striking nation (or so, again, it is viewed by some). How would we evaluate that? I consider that it is by deeply reflecting on such hard cases that we come to an understanding of the role of ethics in the modern public sphere.

Or consider this closely related case: The UN's only weapon against nation-states, sanctions. Sanctions are intended to disrupt the nation's economy and thereby cause hardship to its people, which is hoped will induce the leaders of that nation to change their policies. But in the course of that disruption, assuming it is succssfully achieved, it is likely that people will die. Babies will die. And these deaths are part of the negative effects that the UN hopes will influence the leaders. So how is this not terrorism?

 

[russ_watters]

This raises the interesting case where a nation-state directs a strike in a foreign country intended to kill a high profile terrorist or suborner of terrorism against its people. Such strike typically involve the undirected but entirely predictable deaths of random collateral innocents. The intent of the strike is assassination, i.e. the policy driven killing of a public figure...

Different issue, but yes, an interesting one...

...but the execution of the strike could be viewed by some as a form of terrorism, the effects on the population surrounding the target individual being an acceptible secondary policy to the striking nation (or so, again, it is viewed by some). How would we evaluate that? I consider that it is by deeply reflecting on such hard cases that we come to an understanding of the role of ethics in the modern public sphere.

Objectively, I'd say that terrorism must have a consistent, objective definition and thus can't be an eye-of-the-beholder concept. Practically, I understand that the unintended victims of such an attack do not necessarily consider it rationally. Because of that reality, the attacker must do a cost-benefit analysis that includes the emotional response of the unintended victims. The typical example is Israel - they often attack known terrorists surrounded by civilians and I don't think they always weigh the reaction of the surrounding populous adequately in their decision-making process.

Or consider this closely related case: The UN's only weapon against nation-states, sanctions. Sanctions are intended to disrupt the nation's economy and thereby cause hardship to its people, which is hoped will induce the leaders of that nation to change their policies. But in the course of that disruption, assuming it is succssfully achieved, it is likely that people will die. Babies will die. And these deaths are part of the negative effects that the UN hopes will influence the leaders. So how is this not terrorism?

Subjectively, I can see how the victims might percieve it that way (especially if their opinions are clouded by the propaganda of their criminal leadership), but objectively, inaction cannot be a form of terrorism. Trade and aid are actions that change the natural isolated state of the country in question and stopping these actions just returns the country to its natural state. Contrast that with actual destruction of infrastructure or a blockade which prevents anyone from trading. The lack of a positive action is not the same as a negative action.

A clear example of this is current funding situation of the PA. Israel (and others) cannot be compelled to fund a sworn enemy just because removing the funding will force their enemy to fend for itself.

[edit] Now that I think about it, there are lots of examples of sanctions that have had the same issue. Iraq and North Korea are good examples. In both cases, special extra measures were taken (ie, oil for food program) to safeguard the populace while undermining the dictator, but what happened? The dictator cheated the program and thrived, while the populace still suffered.

 

[loseyourname]

I thought I was perfectly specific. I did not discuss different motives because that was not what I wanted to discuss. The question was whether killing one individual for some reason connected with that individual was morally different from random killing for some reason that was not otherwise connectied to the killing (or perhaps, for no purpose at all, if you can envision that). What part of this don't people understand?

Russ kind of addressed this already and it's an old post at this point, but since this thread is still active, I thought I'd chime in. I don't think assassination is very well defined as "killing one individual for some reason connected with that individual." Murder, euthanasia, capital punishment, self-defense killings, and a number of additional acts that are not assassinations all fall under this general mode of killing and they are not morally equivalent. To assess the morality of an action, we need to know something a little bit more specific about it. Even in the case of an assassination better defined (I would define it roughly as killing a high-ranking political leader of some sort for political reasons) may or may not be a moral thing to do, under any system of morality that does not hold all killing to be immoral regardless of qualification, depending upon that qualification (hence, russ' example: sure, assassinating Hitler would have been moral - assassinating Kennedy was not). Such systems are not exactly all that widely held (I can really only think of Jainism and Pacifism, though I'm sure there are others).

 

[selfAdjoint]

Thank you for the comment. I agree with your criticism of my definition of assassination. How do you like "killing a PUBLIC figure for reasons connected with his PUBLIC image". i.e. because he's president with such and such policies, or because he's reputed to be leader of a terrorist gang.

 

[mathwonk]

this discussion seems depraved to me. at best the title should be "which is worse, assassination or terrorism?"

Perhaps you recall the original assassins were hashish crazed bandits and murderers who killed people they did not know, at the behest of their controller. Indeed according to Marco Polo the word assassin is a corruption of "hashish", while others claim it dwerives from Hassan, the leader of the sect.

But there is no honor in either pursuit, nor justification.

 

[loseyourname]

Thank you for the comment. I agree with your criticism of my definition of assassination. How do you like "killing a PUBLIC figure for reasons connected with his PUBLIC image". i.e. because he's president with such and such policies, or because he's reputed to be leader of a terrorist gang.

That seems to work better. I would imagine there has to be some kind of legal definition out there, though.

 

[DrDeath]

this discussion seems depraved to me. at best the title should be "which is worse, assassination or terrorism?"

Perhaps you recall the original assassins were hashish crazed bandits and murderers who killed people they did not know, at the behest of their controller. Indeed according to Marco Polo the word assassin is a corruption of "hashish", while others claim it dwerives from Hassan, the leader of the sect.

But there is no honor in either pursuit, nor justification.

i think you might actually find that the people of whom you speak were not crazed bandits and murderers, they were the loyal gaurds of their leader who were used to eliminate threats to their culture and their leader from their enemys. there wasnt much in the way of crazed banditism about them. and your right the common term assassin does come from the old use of "hashish" which was the substance the so called "crazed bandits" used as a stimulant before going into battle.

 

[russ_watters]

Thank you for the comment. I agree with your criticism of my definition of assassination. How do you like "killing a PUBLIC figure for reasons connected with his PUBLIC image". i.e. because he's president with such and such policies, or because he's reputed to be leader of a terrorist gang.

It still seems to me to require a case-by-case analysis unless the definition is more specific. There are some specific criteria that seem important to me:

[for external assassination]
-Does a state of war exist between the countries involved. (however, that may fall outside the definition - ie, if it is war, it can't be an assassination, but rather simply an act of war)

-Has there been an international judgement/indictment of criminality of the leader (ie, Noriega, Milosevich).

[for internal assassination]
-Has the leader committed internal political crimes for which there is no legal remedy? (Hitler)

 

[vanesch]

I voted for "morally the same" because of the overlap of both concepts. You can put either in a "better" light than the other.

For instance, I could argue that, if I KNEW that my neighbour was a child molester and child murderer (because I saw, heard... ) him do so, but because of one or other reason, justice didn't accept my charges and the man went free, and I decide to kill him to prevent him from continuing (even if that means that I will go to jail or worse), then this "assassination" is almost a nobel act.
But I could also decide to, say, kill all Jews because I am convinced that they are the evil of the world (innocent example of course ), in which case I'd think that such an assassination, when I do it on large scale (say, 6 million people), would be very bad.

Now, if we go to "terrorism", terrorism is a notion that can go in different directions. At its core, terrorism is the act of scaring the hell out of a population by violent acts, in order to obtain from that population that they exert pressure on their political system to take certain decisions. So you need an agenda, and acts that cause terror amongst the population in such a way that we get closer to the execution of the agenda. This can be by killing randomly some people (that's indeed scaring a population), but it does not necessarily go through the act of killing. For instance, sending some white powder around the country can act just as well in that way than to blow up a bomb.
Now, imagine that a group of terrorists uses such methods, say, to get a population rise up against their evil dictator who is assassinating others. What's then morally on the higher ground ?

The preference most people give here to assassination over terrorism is simply given by the current psychose over terrorism spread by some western politicians: they compare the murder of the lover of your wife to the twin towers, and say that if they have to choose, they'll go for the murderer over Ben Laden. It's one half guilty victim over 3 or 4 thousand innocents. But murder can be on a large scale, and terrorism can have a "good" agenda too.
Do you also prefer the systematic murder of the 6 million Jews over the hypothetical 20 victims of a terror group that wants to get rid of, say, Fidel Castro ?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Patrick, I did specify the means of terror was killing. Changing the rules, as I'm sure you will agree, is not answering the question.

But your other point, that people in their own minds can justify anything is very much on point. Notoriously the Nazis applied the "moral heroism" of Ibsen's doctor in An Enemy of the People to their own holocaust of the Jews.

What I'm really trying to discover is people's attitudes to the question: "We don't always take 'Thou shalt not kill' literally; how do we really view hard cases of killing others?"

 

[vanesch]

Patrick, I did specify the means of terror was killing. Changing the rules, as I'm sure you will agree, is not answering the question.

Sorry, I should have read this more carefully.

What I'm really trying to discover is people's attitudes to the question: "We don't always take 'Thou shalt not kill' literally; how do we really view hard cases of killing others?"

In a way, one could even argue that "terrorism" is Macchiavellic. We don't really like killing, but it is a means to come to our end, which is a political agenda (instore communism, an islamic republic, the protection of migratory birds, the banning of nuclear power, praying to the spaghetti monster...). Killing is just a means, but not a goal.

In assassination, the goal is the death of the victim. Because we think it is a bastard, or because we think that he belongs to a group of Untermensch, or because he's pissing me off in one way or another. So killing is not a means, but a goal.

War is a combination of both! Killing is a means to obtain a desired goal, and let's admit it, the more bastards we can wipe out that way, the better we're off The only difference is the paperwork that goes with it. In the first cases, the actors are single, or a small group of people, with eventually some unofficial support, while in the war case, there is some official structure (parliament, government, president, dictator, junta, international council ...) who takes the decision.