Terrorism, Love and Self Delusion

Recently Irish republican dissidents have murdered two British soldiers and a policeman. It is important to combat these crimes; this of course involves law enforcement. But these crimes can also be combated by preventing the circumstances in which they are likely to arise. As a philosopher I believe in order to do this it is necessary to try and understand the motives of the people involved. These murders have been condemned as cowardly by Gordon Brown and large sections of the British Press. However if we are to understand the motives of these people then we must be accurate in the way we describe them. It seems to me to be both inaccurate and intellectually lazy to describe such people as cowardly. It takes courage to commit suicide; cold blooded murder, however wrong, also takes courage. In this posting I intend to examine the murderers’ motives from a philosophical standpoint. In particular I will suggest these murderers’ motives are often linked to their self esteem.

Ask these murderers about their motives and they would probably say it is to drive the British out of Ireland and bring about a united state in which all Irish people can live in happy harmony. The question must then be asked can any rational person believe, after truthful reflection, that killing soldiers and police officers is likely to further this cause. The answer is an emphatic no. This no is evidenced by the change in attitude of Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and the provisional IRA. It follows our murderers are either not truthful or irrational. They appear to be rational enough to plan and execute their murders. It further follows if they are not irrational then they are untruthful. However they are not untruthful in a straightforward way by lying to others. They are untruthful to themselves. They are deluding themselves as to their true motives.

If we are to understand the motives of these murderers then we must first of all understand them as people. This means we must be careful with our rhetoric and not get carried away by regarding them as cowardly animals totally unlike ourselves. It seems evident such people are failing to flourish and suffer from a poor self image. This failure to flourish may be due in part to a deprived background. This deprivation may be due to poor educational opportunities or a lack of meaningful jobs. However it may also be due to a lack of love. The two are not unconnected poor and poorly educated parents who lack meaningful opportunities may sometimes find it hard to love. The natural response by those suffering from a poor self image is to try and improve it. One way such people may try to improve their self image is by devoting themselves to a cause such as a prosperous United Ireland. By doing so they might see themselves as heroes. I have suggested above if they do so they are dishonest with themselves. The way in which they are dishonest with themselves is that they fail to give adequate weight to all their reasons for action. This failing may be simply due to laziness or self indulgence. A failure to consider all the means that possibly might achieve their goal allows them to select a means specifically intended to indulge an image of themselves as heroes. Moreover this indulgent self image is self deceiving because it is not a true self image. An accurate self image depends on the agent considering all the options open to him, including the unpalatable ones. However an accurate self image is not the one these people seek, rather they seek an image of which they themselves approve.

I have argued these people have the virtue of courage. But courage is a self regarding virtue, an instrumental virtue, that can be used for good or evil. The virtue such people lack is love as they seem unable to feel empathy or sympathy for their victims. It might be objected the above conclusion is false and that they love the cause of a United Ireland. In order to address this objection it is necessary to briefly consider the nature of love. The love in question is not of course erotic love but rather the love of a mother for a child or perhaps, with particular resonance to this posting, the love of a patriot for his country. This type of love is a type of “caring about” in the way considered by Frankfurt.

“Love is, most centrally a disinterested concern for the existence of what is loved, and what is good for it. The lover desires that his beloved flourishes and is not be harmed; and he does not desire this just for the sake of promoting some other goal.” (Frankfurt, H. 2004, The Reasons of Love, Princeton University Press, page 42)

It is important to be clear what is meant by disinterested in this context. Disinterested does not mean the lover is not harmed if his beloved is harmed. It follows natural empathy can be an example of love. Love of this sort is characterised by a kind of satisfaction according to Frankfurt.

“What satisfaction does entail is an absence of restlessness or resistance. A satisfied person may be willing to accept a change in his condition, but he has no active interest in bringing about a change” (Frankfurt, H. (1999) Necessity, Volition, and Love, Cambridge University Press, page 103)

We are now in a position to see why the sort of love possessed by the people who kill others in the cause of a United Ireland is not a genuine kind of love. The reason being it is not a disinterested kind of love. Their love of Ireland originates in a need to bolster their self image. In addition this love is not characterised by simply being satisfied but rather by a need to be self satisfied.

I have argued that the sort of love possessed by dissident republican killers is not genuine love. However I have also argued it is wrong to characterise such people as cowardly and that indeed they may act bravely. The question might then be raised do these people need the excuse, of loving a United Ireland in order to consider themselves, or to be considered by others, as heroes. It seems clear that bravery alone is not enough for someone to be considered as a hero. Bank robbing is not for the timid. One needs some courage to rob a bank but bank robbers are no heroes. Intuitively a heroic action is an action is carried out for some cause. An agent’s self interest is not a suitable cause. Someone may be a hero for saving someone from drowning none the less he is not a hero for saving himself from drowning. It follows the cause must be something the hero is concerned about in a disinterested way. It further follows if we adopt Frankfurt’s concept of love used above then by definition a hero is someone who acts bravely because of love. It might be objected my definition is too restrictive because it means a soldier fighting for a clearly unjust cause can never be considered to be a hero. I believe this objection to be groundless. A soldier who acts with extreme bravery in the pursuit of unjust cause he does not love is no hero. Indeed it might be questioned whether he is very rational and that his bravery might be better directed elsewhere. Never the less a soldier fighting for unjust cause he does not love may still be a hero. He might act bravely to save colleagues he loves for instance. A dissident republican murderer does not act to save colleagues he loves. It follows if my definition of a hero is accepted that it is not justifiable to consider such people to be heroes as they lack genuine love.

If my analysis of the motivation of these murderers is accepted does it allow us to take any useful steps, in addition to law enforcement, to reduce such crimes? This might be attempted in two ways. Firstly by helping to reduce the number of people suffering from low self esteem. And secondly by showing violence in practice hinders the cause of a United Ireland.

I have argued one of the causes of low self esteem is deprivation. This deprivation may be due to a lack of meaningful opportunities or parental love. It is of course true not all people who lack opportunities or who have suffered from poor parenting lack of self esteem. Never the less deprivation does play some part in the development of low self esteem. All good governments as a matter of course seek to improve the number of meaningful opportunities open to their citizens. It follows my considerations of self esteem are not useful with regard to meaningful opportunities. Self esteem also depends on being loved and wanted. Deprived and inarticulate parents often find it hard to give or to express their love. It is difficult to help deprived parents who are unable to love. However more might be done about inarticulate parents unable to express their love. The government’s SureStart program, the responsibility of the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland, seeks to improve health and emotional development of young children, see www.surestart.gov.uk. This Program seems a good place to help mostly mothers, but also fathers, express their love as the emotional development of children is part of SureStart’s remit. If the SureStart program is to successfully fulfill this part of its remit then any SureStart scheme for pre school children must not be simply seen as a form of childcare enabling mothers to work and get off benefits. It must encourage the mother’s active participation. This participation should mean mothers participating with children and other mothers rather than taking part in any form of administration. Such participation alone might aid inarticulate mothers express their natural love for their children and so foster self esteem.

If parents express love for their children these children will automatically feel wanted. However a few parents even with help might find this hard to do. Perhaps then schools should also help children to feel wanted and by so doing help increase their pupil’s self esteem. Almost all schools have policies concerning pupils respecting other pupils and teachers. It might be argued such a policy of respect naturally fosters self esteem. Any such argument seems to me to be simply rhetoric. Respect is important but self esteem depends on feeling loved and wanted. It is perfectly possible to respect someone without any feelings of love for that person or needing her. Schools are not in the business of loving. It might be objected if loving is the same as Frankfurt’s “caring about” then schools should be in the business of loving. Regardless of whether schools are in the business of loving they can foster a sense of being wanted by their pupils. This sense of being wanted cannot be fostered by only respecting their pupils but must involve actively seeking to include all pupils in a school’s activities. Great stress is now placed on pupils achieving five good GCSE passes. Helping pupils obtain such passes is important but it does not contribute to making them feel wanted. To make pupils feel wanted schools must have a broad range of activities so at least one of these activities will be of interest to most of their pupils. If pupils can contribute to something which interests them then they are more likely to feel wanted by their school and this in turn might help bolster their self esteem. This range of activities should include drama, sport, music, participation in the community and craft or trade based options for the less academically able. It might be argued this would be difficult to do in the present economic circumstances. I believe this broadening of activities should be attempted even if money has to be diverted from more academic concerns. It might be argued by some that my concern as to whether or not schools make their pupils feel wanted has very little connection with terrorism. I would disagree recent research by Traci Wike and Mark Fraser on American school massacres, suggests the more attached a school’s pupils are to the school, the more they feel needed, the lower the risk of a school massacre, see New Scientist of 21/03/09.

The above measures are long term but none the less it is important that they are implemented now if future generations are to be protected from terrorism. Are there any more short term measures which might prove useful? It seems self evident that a campaign of violence will never result in a United Ireland due to the large number of Protestants living in Ulster; though perhaps a United Ireland might be reached slowly by other means. I have argued that dissident republican killers seek to improve their self image by devoting themselves to the cause of a prosperous United Ireland and by so doing they see themselves as some sort of heroes. In so doing they delude themselves. It is difficult or nigh impossible to reason directly with the deluded. However it is also nigh impossible for someone to delude himself unless he has at least some others supporting his delusion. For instance it would be almost impossible for a paedophile to believe his actions cause no harm due to the lack of any others supporting his belief. The above suggests if those who support the killers’ delusions can be shown, that the cause of a United Ireland is set back by violence and hence cease to give their tacit support for this belief, then perhaps such peoples’ delusions might be indirectly eroded. In conclusion I have dealt only with dissident republican terrorists in this posting but my comments can easily be transferred to other terrorists groups such as Al Qaida.