Lawrence Helm wrote: "[C]onsider those who recently demonstrated that they couldn't tell the difference between a terrorists act and the act of someone fighting terrorism. I continue to think that this problem is one of education. We no longer teach logic." The problem isn't one of logic, since we are operating in the realm of discussion and debate. For example, people will operate with different premises and logic won't be of much help in addressing these differences. Nor do I think it is an issue of education. This list has some very well educated people who disagree with each other. In my opinion, the problem with many of those who claim a similarity between a terrorist's act and the act of someone fighting terrorism, is their inability to articulate satisfactorily the differences. Often, this failure is a result of a commitment to the claim that mores are expressions of social structures. For example, on this account, the difference between a criminal shooting a person in a drive-by and a police officer shooting the criminal in the course of making an arrest, is one between conflicting social groups. The criminal most likely comes from a background of poverty and abuse while the police officer represents primarily the interests of those who are established and privileged. On this account there is little or no grounds for condemning the criminal and justifying the police officer because there is no recourse to an independent standard for making judgments. There are only descriptions of who people are. Intuitively we know that the criminal is wrong and the police officer is justified, but how is this intuition to be articulated? One can, of course, introduce talk of 'criminals' and 'terrorists', but these are terms relative to a particular social structure. Few would self-identify as being a criminal or terrorist. So one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, and each is an expression of a particular social milieu. But, again, intuitively we make the moral judgment that there is an important difference between the criminal and the police officer that is not satisfactorily accounted for with descriptions of social structures. The commitment to explaining the differences solely through descriptions cannot account for the seemingly universal belief that certain acts are wrong no matter who does them. The terrorist is different from the person attempting to stop the terrorist because what the terrorist is doing is wrong, no matter their background. The person who refuses to draw on a standard beyond social structures is unable to satisfactorily account for this 'wrong no matter who they are'. For those of us who are religious, or believe that there are grounds for making general moral claims, it is then possible to articulate satisfactory accounts of the difference between terrorists and those trying to stop them, even though we may disagree. But without those grounds, all one is left with is descriptions noting similarities and differences, unable to make judgments. I should also note that the 'all is social structures' crowd includes those who advocate 'spreading democracy' or defending 'the American Way'. In both cases, 'wrong no matter what' is collapsed into 'our ideals' and so getting people to acknowledge right and wrong is identical to having them adopt 'our' way of doing things. I say this to guard against the misconception that the issue is one of 'right' and 'left' or 'conservative' and 'liberal'. Sincerely, Phil Enns Glen Haven, NS ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html