Ted Honderich: The Real Friends of Terror (2006)
20 September 2006 | Liberty Bell
Can suicide bombers ever be justified? Professor Honderich, Britain's leading moral philosopher, is unafraid to tell the truth as he sees it. Taking what he says is the betrayal of the Palestinian people as his starting point, Honderich reveals who shares moral responsibility for recent acts of terrorism, and points a finger at the politicians.
Press Release
A programme on FIVE by Ted Honderich in the Don't Get Me Started series two of the award-winning producer/director Eamon T O'Connor.
The idea of this acclaimed series of 40-minute documentary programmes is that each one gives a well-known figure a platform to put the controversial side of a major argument or conflict. So the programmes are by people who do get started riding their hobby horse, and carry on. Some of them must be right.
The programme, The Real Friends of Terror, is presented by the internationally known philosopher of morals and politics as well as the Philosophy of Mind, Ted Honderich.
The programme follows on from his new book Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War: Palestine, 9/11, Iraq, 7/7... (Continuum, 2006), and also from the previous book After the Terror (Edinburgh University Press, 2002) that was banned and then republished in Germany. He is also the author of On Political Means and Social Ends (EUP, 2003) and Terrorism for Humanity: Inquiries in Political Philosophy (Pluto, 2003).
Appearing in the programme are:
- Rt Hon Tony Benn, MP and cabinet minister in Labour governments
- Lord Ian Gilmour, MP and cabinet minister in Conservative governments
- Mr Reg Kees, father of Tom Keys, British soldier killed in Iraq
- Baroness Helena Kennedy, barrister and human rights advocate
- Dr Ghada Karmi, academic and consultant to the Palestinian Authority
- Dr Brian Klug, Senior Research Fellow & philosophy tutor, St Benet's Hall, Oxford
- Dr Riz Mokal, Reader in Law at University College London
- Prof Steven Rose, Head of the Department of Biology, Open University
- Baroness Jenny Tonge, past member of the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet
Scheduled the following week was a kind of alternative or antidote to The Real Friends of Terror — the first time for a Don't Get Me Started programme. It was given by David Aaronovitch, journalist and columnist for the Times and the Jewish Chronicle, known for such articles as Labour's Unthinking Opposition and A Heavily Armed Militia Attacks Your Territory. What Are You Meant to Do? This programme is also produced and directed by Eamon O'Connor. The fact of it is commented on by the author and journalist Richard Ingrams among others.
Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London and Visiting Professor at the University of Bath. He has been a visiting professor at Yale University and the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York. He is the Chairman of The Royal Institute of Philosophy.
His Philosophy of Mind is considered at length by 11 other leading philosophers and himself in Radical Externalism: Honderich's Theory of Consciousness Discussed, edited by Anthony Freeman (Imprint Academic, 2006). Among other recent books are his On Consciousness and On Determinism and Freedom (EUP), Conservatism: Burke, Nozick, Bush, Blair? and Punishment: The Supposed Justifications Revisited (Pluto). He is the editor of the leading reference work The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and the author of The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes and How Free Are You? (all OUP). His autobiography and picture of the philosophy profession is Philosopher: A Kind of Life (Routledge, 2001).
Two other programmes in the second season of Don't Get Me Started were by Ann Widdicombe, former MP, on the subject of women and the modern obsession with appearance, and Selina Scott, former television presenter, on the awfulness of television today.
Programmes in the first season included Bubblewrap Britain by Michael Gove, MP, on health and safety legislation as against freedom and responsibility, Rosie Boycott, newspaper editor, on false or distant grief, as with the death of Diana and murdered children, and Michael Buerk, television newscaster, on the feminization of Britain. The latter programme was broadcast again on 22 August 2006 as a result of legal difficulties that arose with another programme by Michael Buerk, about animal experimentation and animal rights activists.
