notes on terrorists

In an article from the Chronicle Review, Carlin Romano discusses terrorists and moral judgment. He points out that many people, especially our political leaders, refrain from attaching morally loaded terms to terrorists. Terrorists are never called "bastards, lowlife, cowards, scum", etc.

In response to a call for a better way to detect and discourage terrorists, Romano asks: "Why does such a better way not include a call for sterner moral judgment, forcefully expressed?" Why, that is, don't we call these terrorists names.

Well, I may have an answer. Morally loaded terms are not only means to describe people. When we call someone a lowlife we are not merely representing that person with a word. We are also trying to affect their behaviour. We are implicitly saying: "A lowlife is a bad thing to be. You are a lowlife. So make a change." But, in the minds of most people, the actions of terrorists are of a certain kind - one unlike the actions of "normal" people. They are so abominable that, perhaps, they are the work of individuals incapable of improvement and reform. Terrorists, it seems, are beyond reproach, deaf to our moral judgment. So why waste words on them if it will not alter their behaviour in the least?

If this line of reasoning is held by people in general, it may explain the phenomenon Romano discusses.