Certainly, a major part of what makes terrorism wrong must be the shattered limbs and the shattered lives. This account of what makes terrorism distinctively wrong might seem abstruse and problematically ‘bloodless’. “Though we often use the concept overly broadly, ‘terrorism’ is at least is supposed to carve out a form of violence that calls for special or distinctive disapprobation.” What makes terrorism so morally egregious, on this account, is not just the bloodshed involved, but the way that the direct victims are used to manipulate the indirect victims. This differentiates terrorism from other atrocities (such as Adam Lanza’s attack at Sandy Hook element school in 2012 – an atrocity that was apparently devoid of any political or social agenda). The perpetrator, in effect, makes a conditional threat to the indirect victims: you will not feel safe unless you meet our political demands. According to what I will call the ‘Standard View’ of terrorism, which is widely endorsed by many moral philosophers, the purpose of spreading fear in the general population is to coerce them into acceding to some political or social goal that the perpetrator has. Those who are made to live in fear are the indirect victims.

But by inflicting such harms, the terrorist advances another goal: to spread fear in the general population (of which the direct victims are members). The direct victims of terrorism are those who are actually maimed and killed by the terrorist. This is partly because terrorism aims not only at those who are maimed and killed, but at the larger society as well. Though we often use the concept overly broadly, ‘terrorism’ is at least supposed to carve out a form of violence that calls for special or distinctive disapprobation. The question of whether the massacre counts as terrorism is also relevant for moral reasons.

Philosophers view on terrorism