Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Redefining Legitimate Authority: Just War In The Era Of Terrorism, Christopher D. Mercado

Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences

Recent attempts by political philosophers to determine if terrorism can be morally justified have analyzed terrorist groups from a just-war perspective; however, many times, these philosophers have subordinated the principle of legitimate authority to the other just-war principles or have neglected legitimate authority outright. Thus, the issue of who decides when, under what circumstances, and how to make war has been relegated to a secondary interest behind the issue of how war is made. This article fills the resulting hole in contemporary just-war literature by reevaluating the principle of legitimate authority. A proper, up-to-date definition of legitimate authority is here …