Exam 19: Political Violence: War, Terrorism, and Torture

People who should not be intentionally attacked in war are said to have

Suppose you are an immunity theorist, and you hear that an attack by American soldiers on a group of twenty ruthless terrorists has resulted in the deaths not only of the terrorists but also of one noncombatant woman. Later it becomes known that the American soldiers knew the noncombatant was among the terrorists and launched the attack nevertheless. As an immunity theorist you would judge this action to be justified but regrettable.

In just war theory, the justification for resorting to war has traditionally been labeled

The term used to refer to the issue of what acts are morally permissible in war is ________.

Consider the "ticking-bomb" scenario, which is used to justify using torture to fight terrorism. Some who are opposed to torture believe that ticking-bomb scenarios are too contrived to be taken seriously; such states of affairs simply don't happen in the real world. A plausible counterargument to this position is that

The doctrine that war may be morally permissible under stipulated conditions is known as ________.

Suppose you took a Kantian means-ends view of torture. You then would likely judge torture to be

In war the distinction between combatants and noncombatants is unambiguous and very clear to troops on the ground.

Suppose you are a utilitarian, and suppose it is an empirical fact that wars invariably have more bad consequences than good. To be consistent, you then would have to accept the view known as

Eminent realists of the past and present include

In 2014 President Barack Obama claimed that the United States should intervene in an attack on the Yezidi people in Iraq by ISIS in order to prevent genocide. An interventionist might argue that the United States was justified in such an attack, just as a bystander would be permitted to intervene if they were to see an innocent person being threatened. Which of the following would be the best response that the noninterventionist could give to the interventionist argument?

________ is the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering on people to punish or intimidate them or to extract information from them.

Suppose state A launches an unprovoked attack on state B. According to the usual interpretation of just war theory, state B has just cause for going to war against state A-namely

The leading contemporary advocate for just war theory, Michael Walzer, asserts that terrorism is wrong because

As defined in the text, the term ________ refers to the physical or psychological attack on, or the vigorous abuse of, persons, causing their suffering, injury, or death.

A plausible nonconsequentialist argument for pacifism is

The resort to violence for political ends is referred to as ________.

Most people believe that violence is prima facie wrong.

The view that war is never morally permissible is known as jus in bello.

A war launched because an attack from another state is not actual but merely feared is known as a preventive war.