Abstract :
Recently, some commentators have argued that the word ‘terrorist’ should beabandoned as it has become overloaded with undesirable ‘rhetorical’ connotations. Thisview is premised on the assumption that an adequate distinction may be drawn betweenprincipled, ‘logical’ usages and merely ‘rhetorical’ ones. This article argues that the use ofthe word ‘terrorist’ normally has a ‘rhetorical’ aspect and that theorists must therefore findways to distinguish between principled and unprincipled rhetorical deployments. I distinguishthree rhetorical possibilities for using the word ‘terrorist’: the first invokesinterlocutors’ established background commitments to moral and descriptive norms, seekingagreement on the application of the word to a particular case; the second seeks to innovate,challenging either moral norms, descriptive criteria or, less often, the illocutionary force ofthe term; the third resists innovation but deploys the term in metaphorical ways formoral-rhetorical emphasis. Based on this taxonomy, the article reviews both polemical andscholary debates about definition and then proposes pragmatic, rhetorical considerations foradjudicating between competing definitional arguments. Finally, I review the implications ofthese considerations for the contentious issue of whether or not the term ‘terrorist’ properlyapplies to state
