Modern Age - Winter 2018 - 69

Natural Law and Human Motives

just or of the noble. If we share his idea of the just or of the noble,
or if we at least include it in the category of what is authentically
just or noble, then all is well, I might say, and we admire such an
agent. This is a just man, or a noble woman, and perhaps even a
hero! But what happens when his or her idea of the just seems to
us unjust, or if his idea of the noble seems ignoble? Can we still
say that he has in practice obeyed, as an agent, the motive of the
just or of the noble such as he understands it, adding only that
for our part we disapprove, reject, or condemn his idea of the just
or of the noble? Might we look at the crimes of Islamist terrorists
in this way? How can we judiciously confront the chasm that suddenly opens up between the point of view of the agent and that
of the spectator?
We can begin to bridge this chasm by suggesting that the
crimes justified by high ideas of the just or of the noble result
from the corruption of a legitimate or authentic idea of the just
or of the noble. In such cases, the agent vividly experiences the
passion awakened by a certain idea of the noble or of the just;
he is in a way exalted, but he lacks the adequate dispositions to
lead his enthusiasm in the right direction and thus to purge it;
he is looking, as it were, for a short cut and offers to satisfy his
passion immediately, in a way that is crude and cruel, and that
has little to do with the idea of the just or of the noble that originally motivated him or that was present more or less seriously at
the beginning of the process. In the simplest case, which is not
necessarily the rarest, this idea simply provided the pretext for
satiating a criminal tendency.
An analysis of this kind might help us to clarify the conduct of
terrorists by discerning how in their case the religious motivation
relates to the criminal action. We cannot say that their action is a
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Modern Age - Winter 2018

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Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2018 - Cover1
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Modern Age - Winter 2018 - Contents
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