September 11 and the Death of Moral Judgment :: September 11 Terrorism Essays

September 11 and the Death of Moral Judgment   The community is in crisis a national security crisis and a crisis of moral judgment. What is the mature thing to do? People discord. Then comes the big mistake detect disagreement, people conclude that there is no right answer, no counseling to make a judgment. Worse, they conclude that to judge is arrogant and dangerous, so that in an odd twist, the only thing that appears to be morally irresponsible is the attempt to make a morally responsible judgment.   On the contrary, abdicating judgment is the problem. democracy itself is based on the notion that reasonable people will disagree and that it is possible to make judgments about our disagreements - not that there is necessarily single right answer there may be several partially right answers. But there atomic number 18 certainly some defective answers and better and worse judgments about them.   So, how do we judge? First, we dirty dog mean clearly about the words we use. Second, we can stop looking for nice good or pure evil innocence and guilt are not found in pure forms in the real foundation. Third, we can learn to distinguish among kinds and degrees of evils (And there are plenty of kinds cruelty, neglect, exploitation, etc.)   To illustrate unrivaled mans terrorist is an opposite mans freedom mavin. M some(prenominal) people fighting for very antithetic causes call themselves freedom fighters. But they usually permit us last what they mean. Osama bin Ladens statements tell us that his goal is to free the Muslim world of infidels and their influence. He seeks freedom to establish theocratic regimes that would suppress women, as swell as religious and political dissidents. We can argue about whether or not this is freedom in any meaningful sense, but the fundamental thing is to be clear about what he means. For the sake of argument, let us say that he is a freedom fighter. Martin Luther King was a freedom fighter. Maha tma Gandhi was a freedom fighter. Neither could be called terrorist by any stretch of the imagination. They renounced violence as a means. Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, embraces a strategy of targeting civilians in order to terrify and intimidate the population, counteract opposing governments, and achieve his political aims. Whether he is a freedom fighter or not, he is a terrorist.   The enemy of my enemy is my friend This is an central practical principle, but it is not a moral principle.