Martyrs for No Cause

There will never be peace as long as suicide bombings keep occurring. This can be agreed upon by almost everyone, if not all. We need to understand the bombers point of view before we can argue anything, and we need to understand the problem to fix it. It is important to question the ethics surrounding the act of suicide bombings, for the sake of the lives of the innocent. Plato goes into the morality of the issue in the Republic. Bentham says the act could potentially be good as long as it benefits more than it harms, and Hobbes questions whether the act can even be considered justified. Although the suicide bombers may be dying for a cause they truly believe in, it does not make that cause just, reasonable, or morally correct.

Plato would be likely to agree that suicide bombings are not, in any sense, good. In fact, the second book of the Republic talks about how an act must be good in itself and good for its consequences. Suicide bombings are not good in themselves because they take innocent lives. Bombings are only good for their consequences; but, even then, they aren’t called for by everyone involved in them. A bombing could bring pride, joy, and the satisfaction of vengeance to some, but it would be at the cost of others. Even if a suicide bomber believes his act to be justified, Plato would say to do such an act and to think it is justified is not normal. Plato would say their soul is out of balance, their virtues, courage and moderation, skipping about and their virtue of reason, wisdom, asleep. Plato says there is no real justice until one’s virtues are balanced. He would say that the desire for acknowledgement and reward would be overcoming the bombers. He would say that bombers are too proud and vengeful to see the ...

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...e that. If so, then that just reveals a lot more about their though process. Hobbes would be able to account for any motivation of the suicide bombers in his A through L scale. According to Hobbes, anything from A to J is ultimately Hobbesian honesty (K), the want to achieve a benefit for one’s self. Just as Hobbes would say for the soldier jumping on a grenade, a bomber might feel he is insignificant, so he would rather die a hero than to remain and die unknown and insignificant. There is no real cause for the bombers, according to Hobbes. The ones planning the bombing operation probably had their own selfish desires, and it probably wasn’t to better any country. Rather, it might have been vengeance or a showcase of authority. Hobbes would agree that there is no just reason for a suicide bomber to perform such an act. Hobbes would say they are martyrs for no cause.