TY - JOUR PY - 2013// TI - On sacrificial heroism JO - Critical review of international social and political philosophy A1 - Lankford, Adam SP - 634 EP - 654 VL - 16 IS - 5 N2 - For thousands of years people have saved their loudest praise for individuals who made 'the ultimate sacrifice.' Recently, however, many people have begun to equate suicide terrorism with sacrificial heroism. These assertions benefit from a general lack of conceptual clarity regarding the nature of sacrificial heroism itself. Therefore, this paper aims to explore, describe, and define sacrificial heroism, arguing that it requires two primary things: the risk of something highly valued; and the attempt to achieve a directly morally positive result. The paper then reviews four representative scenarios, including two types of suicide terrorism and two types of sacrificial heroism, in order to highlight several critical differences between those actions that deserve to be praised as supremely heroic and those which clearly do not.
LA - SN - 1369-8230 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2012.691209 ID - ref1 ER -