Why it is Not Unreasonable to Fear Terrorism

Abstract

The fear of terrorism is repeatedly scolded. A common claim is that since we are far more likely to be killed in some road or household accident than in a terror attack, the concern with the latter is unreasonably exaggerated. I argue that terrorism’s relatively limited death toll need not mean that fearing it is unreasonable, nor does it immediately imply that counter-terrorism policies are unjustified – whatever other, legitimate concerns these policies give rise to. First, in the special case of terrorism, it is misleading to focus on risk per capita, as critics typically do. Unlike some other hazards, the fact that an individual person is unlikely to be affected is not necessarily due to a diminished potential on the side of the terrorists. Rather, it may simply reflect the less important fact that the number of victims is expected to be small relative to the size of the population. Second, while terrorism has a probabilistic component which should be relevant to decision-making, risk is not entirely or even primarily what terrorism is all about. There are salient moral reasons for being concerned with terror – reasons that are irrelevant in the case of traffic- or household accidents. Third, I argue that fearing terrorism may be reasonable even while recognizing the small probability of personal harm. Due to terrorism’s random character, the belief that one will escape harm rests on little more than statistical evidence. As I explain, this evidence leaves room for reasonable doubt, which renders at least some level of fear reasonable as well. Please note: The reference list on the abstract page for this paper is automatically generated by a beta feature and may thus contain errors and omissions. Please consult the PDF version of the paper for complete and authoritative reference information.