Morality of terrorism Religious and secular justifications

In March 1979 a UCLA-SUNY Conference was held at UCLA. Its proceedings are now in the process of being published.* The discussions of the Conference made it abundantly clear that there was a pressing need for new studies which could provide both historical and moral perspectives for terrorist activities, and this volume was designed to meet that deficiency. Two of the Conference papers were suitable for this purpose, and we solicited thirteen additional ones. Our concern is the "terrorist tradition" from its origin in

the revealed religions to its present manifestations which are largely secular though not exclusively so, as the recent assassination of President Anwar Sadat by members of the Society for Repentance and the Flight From Sin indicates. The most conspicuous sources for secular terror are states and rebels, and the organization of the book reflects that fact. Important common themes running through all the essays are the moral climate that produces terrorism, the doctrines terrorists used to justify themselves and the moral predicaments terrorists create. These themes have been sadly and inexplicably neglected in the literature. The general introduction and the separate ones for each of the three sections are designed to draw out these particular themes in the articles which, of course, deal also with very different concerns.