Introduction

According to some philosophers, acts of terrorism are necessarily morally wrong because they always violate fundamental human rights. If this claim could be shown to be correct, it would decisively settle the question of the morality of terrorism in general and of the IRA's armed struggle in particular, insofar as the latter involved the use of terrorism. But not all philosophers agree that taking rights as centrally important shows that acts of terrorism are necessarily morally wrong. Virginia Held (1991) examines situations in which serious rights violations are already occurring and considers the moral justifiability of the limited use of terrorism in such situations in pursuit of a more just society. She argues that in some of these situations acts of terrorism are (or at least could be) morally justified when considered from a moral perspective that takes rights as fundamental to moral evaluation. Whether she is right, and whether IRA terrorism can be morally justified on this basis, are further questions.

My contention is that Held is correct that a rights-based justification of some acts of terrorism is possible, but her discussion of the conditions that must be satisfied for such acts to be morally justifiable merits greater elaboration. I articulate and defend the additional conditions that must be satisfied for acts of terrorism to be morally justified from a non-consequentialist rights-based moral perspective, and then consider the extent to which the IRA's armed struggle satisfies these conditions.