Mick Hartley

Every week in the Times A.C.Grayling grapples with the major questions of our times from a philosophical point of view. This week the Great Man looks at terrorism.

It’s all perfectly reasonable, as you’d expect. What should our moral stance be towards the terrorists? Grayling decides that contempt is appropriate. Okay, I wouldn’t argue with that. What should our general attitude be? Well, the best thing to do is to carry on as normal. Wise words indeed.

The level-headed tone and impeccable reasonableness of Grayling’s writing show how through the application of clear thinking we can come to grips with this appalling threat.

Then we get to the end of the article:

Even if they get nuclear bombs (as doubtless they will) and set them off in the middle of some of our big cities, they will be able to kill only a minority of us, even if that minority numbers hundreds of thousands. We are 60 million in Britain, over half a billion in “the West”, six billion in the world: there is futility in the project of hatred that the bombers have launched. So the right attitude to take towards them is to recognise that their worst can never be more than a snowball thrown at a castle: the castle of our values and our freedoms.

So we carry on as normal, stiff upper lip and all, and the worst they can do – pshaw! – is set off nuclear bombs in our major cities. Should we perhaps attempt to fight back in some way? Grayling doesn’t say, but if it involves any change to our normal lives or our laws than the terrorists will have won, so it’s probable that he’s not in favour.

I don’t know, but somehow I’m left feeling a little less than reassured.