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Suicide terrorism, moral relativism, and the situationist narrative1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

David R. Mandel
David R. Mandel*
Affiliation:
Socio-Cognitive Systems Section, Defence Research and Development Canada and Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, M3K 2C9, Canada. [email protected]://sites.google.com/site/themandelian/
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Abstract

Lankford challenges two popular views of suicide terrorists: first, that they are psychologically normal and, second, that they are heroic, not unlike professional soldiers. I augment Lankford's critique by tracing these views to a simplistic situationist narrative and to a careless form of moral relativism to which many scholars adhere. Conceptual weaknesses of these positions are briefly discussed.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , August 2014 , pp. 373
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

1.

© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada 2014.

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