Abstract
Several questions converge in sociopolitical and ethical discourses on terrorism such as: how best can we define terrorism? Who is a terrorist? Can a state be rightly defined as a terrorist state? What differentiates acts of terror from terrorism? What is the role of legitimate authority in terrorism discourse? Should one man’s freedom fighter be defined as a terrorist? Can terrorism be justified? This paper examined some of these issues with specific reference to state terrorism, non-state terrorism and legitimate authority. Legitimate authority is central to the discourse on state and non-state terrorism. With legitimacy, state agents can use force on citizens the way non-state agents ought not. But on the contrary Uwe Steinhoff dismisses the need for legitimate authority in the pronouncement of war, or any form of violence. The study argued that Steinhoff misses the point when he disparages the role of legitimate authority in the question of violence. Using the qualitative method the study evaluated Steinhoff’s denigration of legitimate authority from the perspective of terrorism. This allowed a different angle to the state vs. non-state terrorism debate averring that legitimacy removes the accusation of direct state terrorism. The study concluded with Metz’s Afro-communal ethic as a principle that responds to Steinhoff’s queries.
Keywords: Ethics of Terrorism, Legitimate Authority, Nonstate Terrorism, State Terrorism, Thaddeus Metz, Uwe Steinhoff.
Author name(s):
Dr Abayomi Sharomi
Department of Philosophy
Olabisi Onabanjo University, AgoIwoye,
Ogun State, Nigeria
Dr. Andrew Onwudinjo
Institute of Humanities,
Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos, Nigeria
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23141968
Copyright © [2026] The Author(s). Published by the Journal of People and Worldviews (JPW). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are properly credited.