Book Review: Political Violence: A Philosophical Analysis of Terrorism

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297903200215
• Published date: 01 June 1979
• Date: 01 June 1979
• Subject Matter: Book Review

Book

Reviews and Notes

227

Marx, Freud, Lawrence, and others who raised dirty little secrets to the level of

consciousness, they did see alike. They jointly composed

a

serviceable “ideology of

social reform,”

a

coherent framework for governmental action. They formulated

a

set of beliefs which,

as

Freeden says, “worked” and which “is now part and parcel

of modem British political thought.”

Freeden’ has no difficulty being appreciative of the outcome

-

the welfare

state in operation

-

for he postulates no view more comprehensive than the one

to which he devotes his impressive energies. English behavior in India or Ireland,

in the public schools or in corporate board rooms, or, for that matter, in bed, is for

Freeden

-

and for that catch-all abstraction called the liberal mind

-

simply not

part and parcel of The Social Problem. Having drawn

a

tight frame around politi-

cal thought and having excluded those life-negating forces in modem society which

make the days and nights of the citizenry flat, banal, and depressing, Freeden can

readily pronounce the political order of liberalism to be “dynamic, flexible, and

progressive.” And without providing any italicized emphasis, he can convincingly

trace

-

as he does in this study

-

the way by which “liberalism came to grips with

the

problems and issues of modern, highly industrialized society.”

If

there is pathos in the activities of the small, conscientious band of thinkers

whose stirrings have engaged Freeden, none of his words or silences acknowledge

it. The prose is smooth, the mind at rest.

HENRY

S.

KARIEL

University

of

Hawaii

Political Violence: A Philosophical Analysis

of

Terrorism.

By

TED

HONDERICH.

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976. Pp. 118. $7.95.)

Violence and the State.

By LESLIE

MACFARLANE.

(London: Thomas Nelson and

Sons Ltd, 1974. Pp. 155. $8.00 and $3.50.)

These are unsatisfying books, poorly integrated and inconclusive. Honderich’s

however, is

an

exploratory essay which has the merit of raising important issues,

although it neither settles them nor succeeds in illuminating them clearly. In con-

trast, Macfarlane has written

a

text designed to show that the Western concept

of the state is inapplicable to most polities, and it has little novelty or insight to

recommend it.

Both purport to be about violence. Honderich asks whether violence is ever

justifiable in

a

democracy

-

but ultimately and quite surprising!y “democratic

violence” turns out at the end of the book to be

a

form of persuasion rather than

the terrorism the subtitle and the preceding discussion lead one to expect.

To

the

extent that Macfarlane treats violence, his discussion ranges over violence against

the state and violence by states; and the point of the focus on violence is not alto-

gether clear. Macfarlane defines violence

as

“the capacity to impose,

or

the act of

imposing, one’s will upon another, where the imposition is held to be illegitimate.”

He

says force is to be distinguished from violence because it

is

held to be legitimate.

It seems odd to think of violence

as

a

capacity. Honderich defines violence rather

more perspicuously

as

“a

use of considerable destroying force against people or

things,

a

use

of force that offends against

a

norm”; and he defines political

vio-

lence

as

such

a

use of force “prohibited by law and directed to

a

change in the

policies, personnel or system of government, and hence to changes in society.” For

both, violence is connected with legitimacy, but for Honderich the relevant concept

/of legitimacy is the fact of norms while for hfacfarlane it is (some) one’s perception

of what is right; and both slide almost.imperceptib1y from talk of violence to talk

of coercion

-

Honderich,

as

noted, characterizing democratic violence

as

coercive

persuasion. Consequently, for Macfarlane the importance of legitimacy to the con-

cept of violence effectively disappears, while for Honderich it becomes part of his

conclusion that democratic violence can be justifiable.

Honderich has witten

a

generally abstract philosophical treatise, tying to-

gether if not very neatly three separate

essays:

one on the difference in how we