In this meticulously argued work, Christopher Finlay describes the outlook, concerns, and moral character of what we might call reasonable revolutionaries. Reasonable revolutionaries are liberal through and through. They are utilitarian calculators who try to maximize the preservation of life while pursuing liberty. They only resist governments that are oppressive and only kill when necessary. Necessity may demand that they act outside the laws of warfare, for instance to carry out targeted assassinations of noncombatants. Theoretically, they might even have to kill innocent people and engage in acts of terrorism, but there are few if any historical examples where this would be justified.

Much of the first five chapters of Terrorism and the Right to Resist defines terms, and among the most critical is necessity. Drawing on the work of Thomas Hurka, Finlay argues that reasonable revolutionaries will keep in mind that “morally relevant harms arising as a cost of action ought not to be any higher than those necessary for achieving morally relevant gains in justice. . . . Any alternative with a higher ratio of costs to gains will ipso facto entail a higher cost than is necessary for a given quantity of justice gained” (p. 132). What this means is that our revolutionaries will need to engage in some detailed cost–benefit analysis with a heavy dose of future prediction. That is, they will have to estimate what the regime will do in response and their chance of successfully ending the oppression to be sure their actions are necessary.

Drawing on the arguments of Richard Norman and David Rodin, the standard that Finlay builds into this concept of necessity is “narrow proportionality,” which states that any resistance to oppression must be in proportion to the harm caused and generally tries to hold the line against too permissive claims of a right to armed resistance (pp. 56–57; see also 132).

Armed resistance is only justified if it is the best way in “the balance it promises between the prospect of success and costs” (p. 78), which brings us to the question of means. In Chapter 4, Finlay describes a wide range of resistance tactics and places them within five different “codes,” each with its own set of rules. These codes describe nonviolence, the range of means up to the standard jus in bello rules of war, and tactics that standard just-war theory prohibits. The effort demonstrates how the core principles of just-war theory can be used to justify almost any tactic of violence.

Yet we might wonder how, in practice, nonviolence could ever be rejected in favor of armed resistance, let alone the most extreme forms of it, given the standard of necessity. Would not nonviolence always be more likely to minimize harm? According to Finlay, strategic nonviolence becomes immoral when a regime is willing to use sufficient force to “snuff out all chance of success and to impose high levels of harm on innocent supporters of the resistance, and if we assume that sometimes the same circumstances could be addressed with greater chances of success relative to relevant costs by using armed force” (p. 133). Reasonable revolutionaries will see the necessity of rejecting nonviolence when the harm to innocent life is disproportionate and it stands little chance of success, which are interrelated.

This formulation of the meaning of necessity collapses a number of distinctions, making what is moral necessary and what is necessary moral. Both are simply the best available option among the menu of means (codes) that the author presents. This has the effect of welding together realism and just-war theory in ways that are probably uncomfortable for thinkers in both schools. Realists tend to reject putting a moral gloss on wars and other forms of violence they find necessary. To the extent that just-war theorists reject actions that realists say are necessary, it is on the basis that they are unjust. But the collapsing of necessity and justice is perfectly sensible. There is a deep affinity between the two schools of thought (Dustin Howes, “The Just War Masquerade.” The Peace Review, 2015).

Technically, Finlay’s definition of necessity means that any of the five means (codes) that he describes could be considered a last resort. For example, reasonable revolutionaries might assess that partisan warfare and targeted assassinations give the best chance of minimizing the loss of innocent life. But if it does not work, we might try as a last resort the morally questionable methods of nonviolence (on the two different stages of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa described in a way consistent with this, see Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections, 2004). But Finlay does not consistently apply his radical redefinition of necessity, and instead falls back into the familiar habit of assuming that only violence is a necessary last resort.

This is reflected in the order in which the various means (codes) are presented, which in turn structures the book and the argument. Reasonable revolutionaries first try nonviolence, and this becomes a way of gauging the extent to which the regime is committed to violence. Then, they recalculate how to best preserve innocent life. If the regime has demonstrated a willingness to kill nonviolent resisters, the implication is that violent means are more likely to be necessary. Likewise, escalating violence may be necessary if lower levels fail. More specifically, it means (escalating) violence is more likely to succeed and reduce the loss of innocent life (pp. 98–101). But the problem is that there is no way to know whether or not this is true. Perhaps a turn to (more) violence will be effective and reduce the chance of further massacres. Or perhaps it will cause the regime to escalate repression to new levels, whereas sticking with nonviolence (or less violent means) would have caused elements in the regime to soften.

This holds true not at one time point but at all time points. That is, the use of violence against nonviolent resistance by a regime does not tell us how they would respond to further nonviolent or violent resistance, and repeated repression of either form is no guarantee of future repression or an indicator of what would happen if the resistors switched tactics. This is in large part because revolutions, as the name suggests, are highly dynamic. Repression of either nonviolence or violence may be effective, may provoke an uprising so powerful that the regime is incapable of ruling, or anything in between. As our reasonable revolutionaries make their calculations, repressors calculate what is most likely to keep them in power. It is interesting to note that one can imagine even highly repressive regimes justifying repression on the basis of a concept of necessity not all that different from Finlay’s. The most glaring flaws in the author’s analysis come directly from its greatest strength. By defining necessity as success and a cost–benefit analysis of the future loss of innocent life, he demonstrates that the demands of necessity are essentially and profoundly unknowable.

Chapter 10 claims that circumstances where oppression makes agency impossible may require acts of violence to jolt the oppressed from their slumber. Here, the moral problem is that violence may have to precede the nonviolent testing ground. Indeed, if a regime is thoroughly successful in cowing its populace, it may not use much violence anymore, according to Finlay. Yet citing Fanon, Sorel, Guevara, and others, he tentatively endorses the idea that violence for the purpose of breaking out of the problem of agency might be legitimate because there is no other option.

Neither Finlay nor those he cites considers the fact that if dramatic acts of violent resistance are possible, then dramatic acts of nonviolence must be possible, too. Nonviolence seems to be understood only in terms of mass protest, when time and again individuals and small groups have used acts of nonviolence to spark the elements Finlay says are critical: “transformation in consciousness, mobilization, and moral pressure” (p. 293). What is so troubling about this is that violence comes to be nearly synonymous with agency. While violence certainly retains such potential, it does not have a monopoly on it.

This misunderstanding of nonviolence is combined with an assumption that when push comes to shove, violence is the ultimate arbiter of political success and failure. This is reflected in Finlay’s discussion of the “proportionality paradox” (pp. 151–54). Although, in principle, as a regime’s level of oppression rises so does the right to resist, the most repressive regimes reduce the chance of success to the point where resistance is immoral. That is, if a regime is willing to use enough violence, resistance is not only futile but also unjust. Necessity tells reasonable revolutionaries not to throw away innocent lives in the face of overwhelming force.

Terrorism and the Right to Resist left me wondering if any revolutionaries, violent or nonviolent, are reasonable in the way he describes. Certainly, morally responsible revolutionaries will consider how their actions might impact life and death and their chances of success. But in the face of oppressive regimes, a willingness to put lives at risk and to defy overwhelming odds seem like requisite qualities, and uncertainty as to what happens next the order of the day. Creative defiance, not careful calculation, is their outstanding characteristic.