The Inferential Meaning of Controversial Terms: The Case of “Terrorism”

The international community has not been able to agree on a definition of “terrorism,” which has been a controversial term for decades. In order to understand the controversy, here the meaning of “terrorism” is analysed by means of the inferentialist framework developed by Robert Brandom. It will be shown that there is wide agreement about (at least some of) the consequences of application of the term, whereas the conditions of application are precisely what is at issue. Three consequences of application will be distinguished: epistemic, evaluative, and programmatic. Evaluative and programmatic consequences of application of the term “terrorism” are widespread and very serious, even in the absence of a precise definition, and that explains why the conditions of application are a controversial matter. In the end, the controversy is best understood as a clash of interests regarding when the consequences of the term should apply.


Introduction
Political arguments are generally supposed to be about the benefits and disadvantages of proposed policies. In theory, one would think that the paradigmatic kind of argument in deliberations is the argument from consequences, with one party highlighting the positive consequences of its proposal while the other party challenges them and draws attention to the harms that the proposal will cause. In practice, however, what we often find is struggles to characterise policies and actions with certain words and not others. They are usually ill-defined words, such as "democratic" or "oppressive," which function as signals that something should be endorsed or condemned. In his well-known essay "Politics and the English language, Orwell (1946) already noted the use of euphemisms for argumentative purposes: Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.
It is for that reason that the word "terrorism" has caused so much controversy. After decades of being used by politicians and rulers in public discourses and legislation, of becoming a central part of every citizen's picture of the political world, the term 1 still lacks a precise definition on which the international community can agree. Consequently, the word "terrorism" has often been used in a partial and biased way as a rhetorical device, with the purpose of delegitimising certain political adversaries and struggles. Richard Nixon, for instance, used it to describe the protests of anti-war American students (Winkler 2006, p. 21); Lyndon Johnson used it to refer to any violent action of the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese, while referring to all (similar) actions by the United States and its allies as "counterterrorism" (Ibid., p. 35); and the word "terrorism" has also been used to characterise several attacks on military targets, such as the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 (Ibid., p. 195). By contrast, when the US-supported Nicaraguan Contra was committing murder, torture, mutilation and kidnapping of civilians, the US government denied that it was a terrorist group and characterised it as an "armed opposition to communist tyranny" (Ibid.,p. 74). In light of this situation, some people have concluded in despair that "terrorism" means "violence I don't support" or that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (Schmid 2011, p. 42).
It is not that we lack a definition altogether. As a matter of fact, there is no shortage of definitions of "terrorism." Schmid (2011) includes an Appendix with 250 definitions that have been proposed at some point or another. They are, however, very different and sometimes even conflicting, and none of them has gained international agreement. The US government alone has more than 20 definitions (Schmid 2011, p. 44). In the absence of an internationally agreed definition, each country has incorporated its own particular definition of "terrorism" into its domestic law. In the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) discussion on international terrorism that lasted for a whole week in October 2001, Jeremy Greenstock, the UK representative, confidently stated (Collins 2002, pp. 167-168): "terrorism is terrorism… What looks, smells and kills like terrorism is terrorism." Yet, as obvious as it seemed to Greenstock what terrorism is, no precise definition could be agreed upon.
The problem, of course, is that what looks like terrorism is not the same for everybody. There is a tendency to see terrorism in the acts of one's enemies and to fail to see it in those of oneself or one's allies. "Terrorism" is thus a pejorative term that stigmatises those to whom it is successfully applied. Schmid laments (2011, p. 40): 'Terrorism' may well be the most politicized term in the political vocabulary these days. Used as a label for a certain form of political violence, it reflects, if it 'sticks', negatively on a political opponent, demonizing him and de-legitimizing his conduct. In its pejorative dimension, the fate of the term 'terrorist' is comparable to the use and abuse of other terms in political vocabulary-terms like 'racist', 'fascist' or 'imperialist'.
Being categorised as a terrorist is indeed a bad thing. Controversies over the definition of "terrorism" turn on the question of what groups and actions should be regarded as terrorist, for all parties involved in the discussion wish to include their preferred enemies into the category and to exclude themselves and their allies. Nowadays, nobody would pride themselves on being a terrorist. Just like "tyranny," "rape" and "murder," the term "terrorism" is acknowledged by all to have a strong pejorative sense. In a discussion over the legitimacy of a certain political action, agreeing that it was a terrorist act would immediately mean the end of the discussion-no terrorist act can be legitimate.
The purpose of this article is to analyse the negative implications of the term and the resulting controversies over its definition. As we will see, the implications of the term have rarely been challenged, whereas discussions over the meaning have focused on the issue of to which actions and groups the term should be properly applied. In order to understand how a term can have such a persuasive force and generate so much controversy, I believe that it will be useful to adopt the inferentialist framework developed by Robert Brandom. In the next section, Brandom's proposal that the meaning of concepts is inferential will be sketched. Then, Sects. 3 and 4 will deal with the two aspects that are distinguished in the inferentialist proposal: the conditions and the consequences of application. The discussion will focus on the term "terrorism" in order to shed light on its implications and the controversies that surround its definition, but I believe it is not difficult to see how these considerations might apply to many other terms as well.

The Inferential Content of Concepts
In the Platonic tradition, definitions are seen as capturing the essence of its reference. Those are usually called real definitions (Hitchcock 2021, p. 166). The essence of a thing is a set of characteristics that uniquely identify that thing. Following Aristotle's teachings, real definitions usually consist of a genus to which the reference belongs and a difference that distinguishes that reference from other things of the same genus. Now, if the search for a definition of "terrorism" should be understood this way, then that definition would be (relatively) easy to find. We just must assume that there is a real thing in the world called "terrorism" and identify its essential characteristics. One cannot avoid the impression that this is in fact what certain academics attempt to do, for example when Laqueur (2017) spoke 2 about the "nature of terrorism" (p. ix) or "its essential features" (p. 6), or when Wellman (1979) proposed a definition of the phenomenon of terrorism itself. However, I find this approach very problematic.
It is, first of all, a disputed question whether it makes sense at all to talk about real definitions. As Hitchcock (2021, p. 168) argues, even in the case of physical entities, the present state of scientific knowledge "has made the postulation of such essences highly dubious." Moreover, Schiappa (2003) has shown how the definitions of words such as "death," "rape," "wetland," and "person" depend on the purposes of the definition and on human interests. This, however, does not mean that one definition is as good as another, for the purposes of the definition may be more or less valuable and the interests at hand may be more or less respectable. But it does mean that, when searching for a definition, we must consider why and in what context we need it. If Schiappa demonstrated that this is the case with terms that apparently denote human-independent realities such as "death" and "wetland," it will be presumably more so with "terrorism," a politically-loaded term that refers to an imprecise social reality.
I believe, then, that the controversy over the definition of "terrorism" can be more fruitfully interpreted as a discussion about how we should use the term, rather than an inquiry into what terrorism essentially is. The end result of this approach may not be that different from what a real (essentialist) definition would provide-both kinds of definitions should tell us to what realities the term properly applies. The search for a definition, however, will be very different in each case. In the case of a real definition, there is supposed to be a real and delimitable phenomenon out there that we simply aspire to capture; whereas, in the case of a definition of the use of the term, the issue of why we want to delimitate a certain phenomenon and what purposes the term serves becomes important. In order to take the latter into account, I believe that one of the most promising ways to analyse the term is to study the kinds of inferences that its application warrants, that is, the conclusions that can be drawn from the fact that a group or an action can be properly labelled as "terrorist." For this, we need an inferentialist account of conceptual meaning such as the one developed by Brandom (1994).
According to Brandom, using a term entails implicitly accepting certain inferences, that is, accepting the move from certain beliefs to others. It is the conceptual content of terms that licences us to draw those inferences. For example, the conceptual content of the term "Wednesday" is such that the proposition "today is Wednesday" entails the proposition "tomorrow will be Thursday" (1994, p. 98). That is a good material inference in virtue of the meanings of "Wednesday" and "Thursday." If someone said (when asked) that the fact that today is Wednesday tells us nothing about whether tomorrow will be Thursday, we would think that such a person does not completely understand the word she is using. 3 For, as Brandom points out (Ibid.): "Endorsing these inferences is part of grasping or mastering those concepts." The inferential content of terms comprises two fundamental components: the conditions and the consequences of application. The conditions (or circumstances) of application specify in which cases a term can be used. If my calendar (and everybody around me) informs me that today is not the third day of the week, 4 then I am not entitled to assert that today is Wednesday. On the other hand, the consequences of application include all the other statements to which I commit myself when I use the term-such as "tomorrow will be Thursday." This is an insight that Brandom took from Dummett (1973, p. 453), who wrote: Learning to use a statement of a given form involves, then, learning two things: the conditions under which one is justified in making the statement; and what constitutes acceptance of it, i.e. the consequences of accepting it.
On the basis of this proposal about the inferential content of terms, Dummett explained why pejorative terms are problematic. The example that he offered was the term "boche," a term that was used by the Allies during the world wars to refer to Germans in a derogatory manner. Dummett explains (p. 454): The condition for applying the term to someone is that he is of German nationality; the consequences of its application are that he is barbarous and more prone to cruelty than other Europeans. We should envisage the connections in both directions as sufficiently tight as to be involved in the very meaning of the word: neither could be severed without altering its meaning. Someone who rejects the word does so because he does not want to permit a transition from the grounds for applying the term to the consequences of doing so.
According to Brandom, all terms are like that-the conceptual content of all terms is inferential (1994, p. 119). Here, however, I will focus on the term "terrorism," and I will leave open the question of what other terms, or whether all terms, can be explained inferentially. The controversy surrounding the definition of "terrorism" can be understood, I believe, in terms of its inferential content. As we will see in the next section, some of the consequences of applying the term are very serious and apparently unavoidable. Such consequences are not part of inferences that may arise in specific contexts, such as implicatures or other kinds of pragmatic inferences, but are actually part of the conceptual meaning of the term-i.e. its semantics. Hence, the discussion about how "terrorism" should be defined has centred on the conditions of application-on what groups or acts should properly be called "terrorist." Before that, a caveat is in order. When I discuss the conditions and the consequences of application of the term "terrorism," and consider whether there is agreement or disagreement regarding any of them, obviously I cannot take into account all the public voices that have talked about terrorism.
Instead, I will focus on people and organisations that are most likely to influence public opinion or to reflect international agreements, such as the US President, the United Nations, or the Non-Aligned Movement. I will occasionally mention individuals with considerably less influence only to reinforce some point already made. So, in this sense, this survey might be seen as incomplete, and perhaps further research that takes into account other public voices or even those of ordinary people will yield slightly different results. Nevertheless, within the modest scope of the present article, I believe that I have focused on the most relevant statements regarding terrorism.
Let us begin, then, the other way around: with the consequences of application. This will help us grasp later the significance of the controversy around the conditions of application.

Consequences of Application
When Brandom argues that understanding a term involves understanding what follows from the correct application of that term, he mainly talks about what we can call the epistemic consequences of the term. That is, he talks about the inferences from some beliefs to others. This can be seen in the examples he uses: "Pittsburgh is to the West of Philadelphia" (p. 98), "thunder will be heard soon" (Ibid.), and "that's water" (p. 119). However, he also discusses practical commitments, which agents can acquire when the consequences of application of a concept are practical (p. 233): The general claim is that there are two species of discursive commitment: the cognitive and the practical. Acknowledging commitments of these two sorts is adopting deontic attitudes that correspond to the intentional states of believing and intending, respectively. A practical commitment is a commitment to act.
I believe that, in the case of "terrorism," it is the practical kind of consequences that are of most interest to us, as we will see shortly. In Sects. 3.2 and 3.3, I will differentiate between two kinds of practical consequences: evaluative and programmatic consequences. But let us focus for a moment on the epistemic consequences.

Epistemic Consequences
What epistemic consequences can one draw from the proper application of the terms "terrorism" and "terrorist"? No doubt many of them will be fairly trivial, akin to the inference from "that is red" to "that is coloured." For example, from the fact that a group can be categorised as "terrorist," one can conclude that it is a group of people, since animals, plants, and inanimate objects cannot commit terrorist acts. There are also, however, certain more interesting inferences about the motives and effects of terrorism that have been proposed in the public discourse. Winkler (2006), who has studied the public statements of US Presidents on terrorism since the 1960s, offers us a broad sample of what the motives and values of terrorists are, according to various US administrations. The most frequent claim has been that terrorists operate with the purpose of destroying democracy and freedom, which they hate. 5 This is a discourse that began with Kennedy's and Johnson's administrations, when terrorism was linked to communism, especially in the context of the Vietnam war. Even though Kennedy's depiction of the Vietcong's actions as "terrorism" was infrequent, he was the first to speak about "communist terror" (p. 18). Johnson, who understood that the reference to "terrorism" was more appealing to South Vietnamese's concerns than ideological labels such as "communism," used the former term profusely. Nixon also talked about "communist tyranny and terror" (p. 23), thereby opposing terrorism to democracy. And Reagan explicitly stated (p. 84): Terrorism is the antithesis of democracy.
[…] Where democracy seeks to consult the common man on the governance of his nation, terrorism makes war on the common man, repudiating in bloody terms the concept of government by the people.
According to Nixon, the purpose of terrorism was to distract the United States from "our very real hope that someday the nightmare of totalitarian rule will end and self-government and personal freedom will become the birthright of every people on Earth" (p. 85). Thus, terrorism was opposed to America because it was opposed to democracy and freedom.
More recently, terrorists have even been portrayed as pure evil, whose motivation is simply hatred towards freedom, peace and democracy. Thus, Clinton claimed that terrorists are "enemies of peace" and "forces of hatred and intolerance" (p. 138). Repeating Nixon's thesis, Clinton explained the United States' fight against terrorism on the basis of the terrorists' opposition to democracy (p. 143): America is and will remain a target of terrorists precisely because we are leaders; because we act to advance peace, democracy, and basic human values; because we're the most open society on Earth; and because, as we have shown yet again, we take an uncompromising stand against terrorism.
Clinton even ruled out any other explanation of the terrorists' motivation, arguing that (p. 153): "Terrorism is not a political issue; this is not a partisan issue, this is not an ideological one." After the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11th of September 2001, the portrayal of terrorists as motivated by pure hatred intensified. The representative of the United States at the 56th General Assembly of the United Nations, which took place the day after the attacks, stated that this was not a struggle between his country and Islam, but that "the division that existed was between the civilized world and terror, between the rule of law and the chaos of crime, between a world at peace and a world in peril." 6 In stronger terms, Bush said that terrorism was "an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion," and that: "Terrorists hate freedom. They hate free nations" (p. 169). This is not, however, a characterisation of terrorism that is particular to the United States. The General Assembly of the United Nations has depicted terrorism in similar terms. In Resolution 48/122 7 (1994), for example, it is claimed that terrorism is "aimed at the destruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democracy, threatening the territorial integrity and security of States, destabilizing legitimately constituted Governments, undermining pluralistic civil society." Almost identical statements were repeated in several other resolutions of the UN General Assembly in the 1990s (Saul 2006, p. 35). Thus, terrorists have been portrayed as barbarians whose sole purpose is destruction. Being a terrorist entails being moved by hatred towards democracy and freedom, without a reasonable motivation.
Admittedly, even though the United Nations represent the views of almost all countries, the belief that terrorists aim at destroying democracy is rather limited to the West. 8 The counter-terrorism treaties of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), for example, say nothing about the effects of terrorism on democracy (Saul 2006, p. 35). Therefore, that is not an epistemic consequence of the term "terrorism" that can be drawn in non-Western, less democratic (or straightforwardly undemocratic) countries. However, a belief in the incompatibility between terrorism and freedom, or even human rights, is much more widespread. For instance, the Non-Aligned Movement has recently stated the following: The Non-Aligned Movement reaffirms that terrorist acts constitute a flagrant violation of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, in particular the right to life, leading to the lack of the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of peoples. 9 Likewise, the 1999 Convention on Combating International Terrorism of the OIC states in the preamble that "terrorism cannot be justified in any way" and that it "constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to freedom and security." 10 And, along similar lines, the 1999 Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism of the OAU says in the preamble that "terrorism constitutes a serious violation of human rights and, in particular, the rights to physical integrity, life, freedom and security." 11 Hence, no mention is made of democracy outside Western statements and UN resolutions. But notice also that no mention is made of the motivation of terrorists. In non-Western statements and treaties, we do not find the claim that terrorists aim at destroying, or hate, freedom and human rights. Instead, what we see is the (arguably more sensible) claim that terrorism is a threat to, or a violation of, freedom and human rights-whatever the terrorists' motivation is. Therefore, the epistemic consequence discussed above, about the motivation of terrorists, is admittedly only present in Western political discourse and UN resolutions during a certain period. Yet, these two consequences are sufficiently common in their respective domains to deserve being mentioned here.

Evaluative Consequences
Apart from epistemic consequences, as I pointed out, the use of terms can have-and often does have-practical consequences. Here it will be useful to distinguish between two kinds of practical consequences, which in the case of the word "terrorism" correspond roughly to the moral and legal consequences of characterising something as "terrorist." On the one hand, there are what here I will call evaluative consequences. In a way, these consequences could be said to resemble what Stevenson (1944) called emotive meaning. 6 "Unprecedented unity prompted by 'terrible evil' of 11 September attack says Secretary-General, as General Assembly begins terrorism debate", Press release, United Nations: https:// www. ohchr. org/ en/ press-relea ses/ 2009/ 10/ unpre ceden ted-unity-promp ted-terri ble-evil-11-septe mber-attack-says (Accessed 2022-04-23.) 7 https:// digit allib rary. un. org/ record/ 180197. 8 I thank Fabio Paglieri for drawing my attention to this limitation. 9 Statement by Eshagh Alhabib, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, before the United Nations General Assembly, 6 October 2020. https:// www. un. org/ en/ ga/ sixth/ 75/ pdfs/ state ments/ int_ terro rism/ 01mtg_ nam. pdf (Accessed 2022-04-25.) He defined it thus (p. 59): "Emotive meaning is a meaning in which the response (from the hearer's point of view) or the stimulus (from the speaker's point of view) is a range of emotions." Here, however, I prefer not to use the word "emotive" for this category of consequences of application, because Stevenson's distinction between "descriptive" and "emotive" meaning is likely to lead us to a questionable opposition between cognition and emotion. The point here, what is of interest for my purposes, is that part of the meaning of some terms consists in some kind of evaluation of the referred entity: approval or disapproval, praise or censure, admiration or contempt, and so on. Stevenson (p. 61) provides an enlightening example of a debate: A: I favour this bill because it restricts the degree of license allowed to business. B: License? It is really a way of suppressing libertythat freedom of enterprise which is the cornerstone of our democracy.
As can be seen here, the persuasive power of the emphasised words is so great that they (together with the use of the verbs "restrict" and "suppress," which Stevenson seems to overlook 12 ) determine whether the statement is for or against the bill-no further argument is needed. License is something that must be constrained; liberty is something that must be protected. This is typical of political argumentation. Claiming that a decision is "undemocratic," "oppressive," or "totalitarian" is enough to discredit it. If an event is an "attack," then it must be condemned; if it is a "tragedy," then lamenting it will suffice. Those terms bear in themselves the sign of approval or disapproval, of guilt or innocence. As Macagno and Walton (2014, p. 5) put it: "these words clearly lead us to draw a judgment, or feel uncomfortable with, or be attracted to a certain situation." "Terrorism" is, of course, one of those words with strong evaluative consequences. As was already pointed out in the introduction, "terrorism" is a pejorative term that delegitimises whoever it is attached to. Schmid (2011, p. 40) explains: Like a number of other '-isms', terrorism has, owing to the bloody historical record of the phenomena associated with the term, become a term of stigma. Only few terrorists use the term for self-description. Usually they opt for terms like 'revolutionary', 'freedom fighter', 'martyr', 'urban guerrilla', 'resistance fighter' or even 'soldier'.
Indeed, the negative connotation of the term is evident by the fact that no group or individual would characterise themselves as "terrorist" or endorse terrorism. The members of the Basque separatist group ETA usually referred to themselves as "gudari" (Basque warrior). In his "Letter to America," Bin Laden talked about the "fight" of the "Mujahideen" or the "Islamic Nation" against America. 13 Yasser Arafat, in his speech at the UN General Assembly in 1988, claimed that "I condemn terrorism in all its forms." 14 And, needless to say, no State ever admits to committing terrorist acts, even if they deliberately target civilians or their properties in order to spread terror.
Whereas political violence can sometimes be excusable or even justified (think of rebellion against oppressive regimes or just wars), terrorism is always seen as illegitimate. 15 This has been an agreed point in the UN General Assembly since 1989, when Resolution 44/29 16 characterised terrorism as "criminal and unjustifiable" (my emphasis). Later resolutions have similarly condemned terrorism as an unjustifiable act (Saul 2006, p. 203). In 1994, in the preamble of Resolution 48/122, the General Assembly stated that terrorist acts "cannot be justified under any circumstances." And, for a final example, in 2004, Resolution 1566 17 of the UN Security Council (UNSC) stated that terrorist acts "are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature." As Stampnitzky points out (2017, p. 15): "whatever is designated as terrorism is defined as illegitimate violence. Violence seen as legitimate, or as potentially justifiable, will face resistance in being labeled as terrorism." Saul (2006, p. 21) also remarks: "Labelling opponents as terrorists de-legitimizes, discredits, dehumanizes, and demonizes them, casting them as fanatics who cannot be reasoned with." As opposed to guerrilla or insurgent groups, enemy armies, or freedom fighters, terrorists cannot be negotiated with. Their struggle is by definition illegitimate-no compromise is possible. Reagan characterised terrorism as "uncivilized" and "evil to its core and contemptible in all its forms" (Winkler 2006, p. 81). Clinton depicted the fight against terrorism as a "struggle between freedom and fanaticism" (Ibid., p. 142). And Colin Powell, Secretary of State in George W. Bush's administration, said (Ibid., pp. 186-187): " [Terrorism] represents no faith, no religion. It is evil. It is murderous." 13 https:// www. thegu ardian. com/ world/ 2002/ nov/ 24/ theob server (Accessed 2022-05-01.) 14 https:// www. paljo urneys. org/ en/ timel ine/ histo ricte xt/ 9677/ yasir-arafat% E2% 80% 99s-speech-forty-third-sessi on-united-natio ns-gener al-assem bly (Accessed 2022-05-01.) 15 Only in the academic context has the legitimacy of terrorism been seriously considered-see, for instance, Schwenkenbecher (2012) and No doubt it is this strongly evaluative component of the term that has caused it to be used in such a partisan and biased way since the 1960s. As Collins (2002, p. 163) argues: the damning label of "terrorism" was applied only to violence that came from the Left or (less frequently and in the European context) from the far Right. Political violence carried out by or with the support of the United States and its allies, by contrast, was known by a host of less pejorative terms: counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, low-intensity conflict, self-defense, and war.

Programmatic Consequences
The evaluative consequences, however, as problematic as they can get, are not the main reason why a precise and internationally agreed definition of "terrorism" is necessary. Labelling a person or a group as "terrorist" not only has the political and rhetorical consequence of delegitimising it, but it also has serious legal consequences. This is the second kind of practical consequences that I would like to discuss, which I will call programmatic consequences. The term is Israel Scheffler's (1960, p. 19), who used it to denote definitions that act "as an expression of a practical program." Programmatic definitions, according to Scheffler, play a special role in a certain moral, legal, or ethical course of action. They tell us what must (or must not) be done. Scheffler illustrates this with the example of a definition of "curriculum" that characterises it as "referring to the totality of experiences of each learner under the influence of the school" (p. 23). Defining "curriculum" in that way entails a modification of the educational practice (p. 24): In particular, the programmatic point is to extend the school's responsibility, hitherto limited to its so-called formal course of study, in such a way as to embrace the individual social and psychological development of its pupils.
Here, however, we have not seen any proposed definition of "terrorism" (yet). What I propose to call programmatic consequences of the term "terrorism" are there irrespective of how we define that term. So, in that sense, I am departing from Scheffler's concerns about definitions. But the departure, I believe, can be fruitful. Scheffler pointed out that whether definitions are programmatic or not depends on the context; and, as it turns out, the current legal context makes the term "terrorism" have important consequences that delineate a clear course of action. 18 Most, if not all, activities that can be considered "terrorist" have of course always been prohibited in the criminal code of all countries. Kidnapping, bombing, and murdering, for instance, have all long been criminal offences. However, during the 20th century, the States have also enacted specific laws for those offences that are regarded as "terrorist acts." Thus, the legal consequences of murdering someone as a terrorist act and murdering someone out of (say) jealousy are very different. I will not get into all the intricacies of counter-terrorism laws in different States; instead, I will focus on the context where agreement on a definition seems impossible to achieve: the international community.
Since the 1970s, several resolutions of the UN General Assembly have condemned acts of terrorism and have urged Member States to implement measures addressing the problem. The earliest condemnation can be found in Resolution 3034(XXVII) in 1972, which only condemned State terrorism (as we will see in the next section). Later on, in 1979, Resolution 34/145 19 stated in paragraph 3 that the Assembly: "Unequivocally condemns all acts of international terrorism which endanger or take human lives or jeopardize fundamental freedoms." Resolutions 40/61 20 (1985) and 42/159 21 (1987) drop the "international" qualification and "unequivocally" condemn "all acts, methods and practices of terrorism wherever and by whomever committed." There have also been repeated appeals to combat terrorism. For example, in 1993, when the World Trade Center suffered a bombing attack that killed 6 people, the General Assembly agreed on Resolution 48/122, which urged "the international community to enhance cooperation in the fight against the threat of terrorism at national, regional and international levels." Nevertheless, none of those resolutions had legal character. The General Assembly is mainly a political body and, in general, its resolutions do not have any binding legal effect (Saul 2006, p. 191). Hence, the references to "terrorism" in those declarations had no legal consequence.
A different issue, although with similar consequences, arises in the case of international treaties. Between 1963 and 2005, twelve international treaties were concluded to address specific acts of violence that can be seen as terrorist acts (Saul 2006, p. 130). For example, the 1971 Montreal Convention had the purpose of preventing acts against the safety of civil aviation, and in 1997 the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings was adopted by the UN General Assembly. However, only a few of those treaties referred to the prohibited acts as specifically "terrorist" offences-those which did, only mentioned the term in their titles or their preambles-and none of them included the terms "terrorism" or "terrorist" in its substantive provisions (Ibid., p. 131). Hence, terrorism per se was not an internationally acknowledged crime.
Things changed after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on the 11th of September of 2001. Immediately after the attacks, the UN Security Council issued a declaration in Resolution 1373 22 that was legally binding. In that Resolution, the Council assumed a "quasilegislative and/or regulatory" role, and States uniformly accepted the obligations that were imposed on them (Saul 2006, p. 239). As Saul explains (Ibid., p. 48): […] the terms 'terrorism' and 'terrorist' have operative legal significance in Resolution 1373, triggering obligations to criminalize financing of terrorism; suppress terrorist groups; deny refugee status to terrorists; prevent the movement of terrorists; bring terrorists to justice; and, vitally, establish terrorist acts as serious domestic crimes.
As we will see in the next section, the absence of a definition-even in Resolution 1373-created the legal problem of having to apply special measures to an undefined group of criminals. But that problem has to do with the conditions of application of the term. For now, the point is simply that the application of the term acquired a special kind of programmatic consequences. If, by 2001, as a matter of fact States already had special statutes to address terrorism in their domestic law, since that year they are obligated to have them. Moreover, the statutes enacted by States must affect the financial assets and the freedom of movement of whoever is identified as a terrorist. Being a terrorist must be seriously punished.
Hence, both the epistemic, the evaluative and the programmatic consequences of application of the term "terrorism" are very serious. Interestingly, with the possible exception of epistemic consequences, those consequences of application have rarely been contested. Virtually everybody agrees that being a terrorist is not a good thing and that the law must seriously punish it. As Fletcher (2006, p. 906) points out, terrorism is like torture in this respect: The general condemnation of terrorism in international politics should lead us to think of terrorism as analo-gous to torture. As the latter is taken to be an absolute taboo, so should the former.
The controversy, then, has focused on the question of who is a terrorist, that is, on the conditions of application. So much so that, as is well known, the international community has been unable to agree on a definition.

Conditions of Application
An interesting thing to note about the discussion so far is that we have managed to spell out three different kinds of consequences of application of the term "terrorism" without mentioning any proposed definition. This, coupled with the fact that there seems to be agreement on those consequences of application, whereas the definition is a highly controversial matter, indicates that, in the case of "terrorism," the definition of the term corresponds to its conditions of application. I am not claiming that this is the case with every term. The definitions of "chair" and "table," for example, probably need to include what chairs and tables are for-that is, their practical consequences. However, the definition of "terrorism" seems to be limited to the conditions of application.
What, then, is terrorism? Here I will discuss two main points of contention in the controversy about the definition: whether States can commit terrorist acts, and whether a distinction should be made between terrorist groups and freedom fighters. I will conclude this section with a discussion of some other minor issues.

The Issue of State Terrorism
The word "terror" began to be used in political discourse to refer to the actions of the Jacobins in 1793 and 1794, that is, to a case of State terrorism (Tilly 2004, p. 8;Schmid 2011, p. 41). The Jacobins used the term in a positive sense until the 9th of Thermidor, when Robespierre was overthrown and the term acquired criminal implications (Laqueur 2017, p. 6). Today, however, "terrorism" is used in mainstream discourse to refer to individual people or groups of people, who may or may not be aided by governments.
During the 20th century the term "terrorism" was often used to refer to actions of the States. The first time that the UN General Assembly addressed the subject of terrorism specifically was in 1972, after members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes in the Olympics (Saul 2006, p. 198). The General Assembly agreed on Resolution 3034(XXVII), 23 which, strikingly, did not condemn terrorist acts committed 1 3 by groups such as Black September, but only those committed by States. In paragraph 4, it stated that the Assembly: Condemns the continuation of repressive and terrorist acts by colonial, racist and alien regimes in denying peoples their legitimate right to self-determination and independence and other human rights and fundamental freedoms.
This, of course, is not a definition, but it illustrates the insistence by many Member States on characterising terrorism in a way that includes State terrorism. The same exact statement can be found in UNGA resolutions 31/102 24 (1976), 32/147 25 (1977), and 34/145 (1979). Resolution 3034(XXVII) created an Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism with the purpose of issuing recommendations for the elimination of terrorism, where the highly divisive issue of State terrorism arose. Some representatives held that State terrorism was "the most harmful and deadly form of terrorism" and that governments should not be "free to inflict terror." 26 State terrorism was attributed to "colonial, racist and other reactionary regimes," who "continued to subject the peoples of colonized regions to various kinds of oppression, coercion, humiliation and forced emigration without respect for law or custom." 27 Even though the Ad Hoc Committee had the task of drafting a comprehensive convention on international terrorism, the issue of whether State terrorism should be included halted the adoption of the convention. Israel, the United States, and most Western countries opposed its inclusion, whereas several Arab countries-concerned about the actions of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories-insisted on it (Blakeley 2017, p. 55).
Later on, however, things changed in the United Nations. After the 1970s, the contention that State terrorism should be acknowledged gradually dissipated 28 (Saul 2006, p. 213). More recent resolutions seem to implicitly exclude the possibility that actions committed by States can be terrorist. Thus, for instance, resolutions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tend to refer to the attacks by Palestinian groups as "terrorist acts" or "acts of terror," whereas the actions of the Israeli government are typically characterised as "excessive use of force" (Saul 2006, p. 244). In 2000, UNSC Resolution 1322 29 condemned "acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life." Likewise, in 2004, UNSC Resolution 1544 30 mentioned the demolition of Palestinian houses by Israel, but it framed them as violations of international humanitarian law, not as terrorism. On the other hand, UNSC Resolution 1435 31 from 2002 urged "the Palestinian Authority to meet its expressed commitment to ensure that those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice by it." Yet the controversy over State terrorism cannot be said to have been settled-it just faded away.
The acknowledgement of State terrorism in the early UNGA resolutions stands in stark contrast to the definition which has been used by the State Department of the United States since 1983, contained in Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d) (Winkler 2006, p. 199): The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
By stating in the definition that terrorism is something that "subnational groups or clandestine agents" do, the conditions of application of the term explicitly rule out the possibility of State terrorism. However, the position of the United States regarding the possibility of State terrorism has not always been consistent. President Reagan created a list of "State-sponsors of terrorism" and warned about "the use of terrorism as an instrument of State policy" (Winkler 2006, p. 71). In 1991, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, President Bush called Saddam Hussein an "international terrorist" and described the occupation of Kuwait as "a systematic campaign of terror" (Ibid., p. 104). The US also voted in favour of UNSC Resolution 687, 32 which required Iraq "to inform the Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism" (my emphasis). Later on, in 1992, after the 1988 bomb attack on an airplane over Lockerbie (Scotland), which was committed by two Libyan nationals, UNSC Resolution 748 33 -supported by the US, among others-stated that "the Libyan Government must commit itself definitively to cease all forms of terrorist action." Thus, it seems that, at least when it comes to non-Western countries, States can conceivably commit terrorist acts. As Blakeley points out (2017, p. 53): "it is usually assumed that states that use and sponsor terrorism are so-called rogue states or states governed by authoritarian regimes." Yet, many acts committed by Western countries-since their colonial past, through World War II, and into the Cold War 24 https:// digit allib rary. un. org/ record/ 199830. 25 https:// digit allib rary. un. org/ record/ 188772. 26 Ad Hoc Committee Report (1973), p. 8, § 24. https:// digit allib rary. un. org/ record/ 725218. 27 Ad Hoc Committee Report (1979), p. 12, § 40. https:// digit allib rary. un. org/ record/ 3073. 28 But it never completely disappeared, as we will see later in the case of the 14th Summit Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (2006). 29 https:// digit allib rary. un. org/ record/ 424270. period and most recently in the "war on terror" (p. 57)should be seen as terrorist acts. As she says (Ibid., p. 54): "counterterrorism campaigns more often than not involve practices that ought to be understood as state terrorism." No wonder many liberal Western countries have traditionally opposed the inclusion of State terrorism in the definition.
Hence, there seems to be an element of arbitrariness involved in the consideration of the possibility of State terrorism. In fact, the US had to face accusations of supporting terrorism during the Reagan era. A worry arose that the US belonged to its own list of "State-sponsors of terrorism" due to the government's support of the Nicaraguan Contra (Winkler 2006, p. 72). As was mentioned in the introduction, the government's response was to characterise the Contra as "insurgency" rather than "terrorism," but such a distinction was largely ideological and unprincipled-the Contra, it was alleged, was fighting "communist tyranny" (Ibid., p. 74). As Fletcher (2006, p. 905) puts it, the question of whether States can commit terrorist acts "seems to be largely a political rather than a jurisprudential question." 34

Terrorists and Freedom Fighters
The Reagan's administration attempts to exclude the Contra from the category of "terrorism" leads us to the second point of contention: the issue of whether or not so-called "freedom fighters" could be regarded as terrorist groups. Since the United Nations began discussing the definition of terrorism in the 1970s, several States insisted that armed liberation movements should not be regarded as terrorist groups. In 1972, Resolution 3034(XXVII) was not supported by the United States, the Soviet Union, Israel and other 59 countries-who abstained-because, among other reasons, it stated that the General Assembly: Reaffirms the inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all peoples under colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien domination and upholds the legitimacy of their struggle, in particular the struggle of national liberation movements, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter and the relevant resolutions of the organs of the United Nations.
Statements of this kind were common in resolutions until 1993 (Saul 2006, p. 200). In the Ad Hoc Committee that was created by Resolution 3034(XXVII) to address the problem of terrorism, some representatives held that "the exercise of the right to self-determination and independence recognized by the United Nations as an inalienable right of all peoples should not be affected." 35 On the other hand, the United States opposed that clause and argued that there is no contradiction in condemning terrorism and supporting self-determination, and that there must be "limits on the permissible conduct of groups or individuals in promoting their objectives." 36 The controversy, then, turned on whether definitions of terrorism should include a clause that leave the actions of liberation movements out of the scope of the term. Those opposed to that clause, such as the US, argued that armed liberation movements would be safe as long as they did not resort to using terrorist tactics-and, if they did, they should be punished just as any other terrorist group. Terrorism, it was repeated, is unacceptable regardless of the motives or purposes. However, there are reasons to suspect that guerrilla groups and fighters resisting occupation tend to be regarded as terrorist independently of the means they use, and therefore that exclusion clause may be necessary. For example, Resolution 1546 37 of the UNSC (2004) condemns "all acts of terrorism in Iraq." But, in the absence of a precise definition, it is not clear exactly which acts can be regarded as terrorist in Iraq. After the US invasion in 2003, what we could see was a variety of irregular forces resisting occupation. Moreover, the US characterised as "terrorism" many attacks on legitimate military targets. And, given the increasing privatization of military operations, that may include attacks on civilian airplanes that were contracted to transport US troops (Saul 2006, p. 225).
Just as happened with the issue of State terrorism, the claim made by many representatives at the UN for an exclusion of liberation movements gradually lost force. As a consequence, the "national liberation movements" clause was no longer present in UN resolutions in the 1990s and the 2000s. In part, this may be due to the adoption in 1977 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 38 which recognised fights "against colonial domination, alien occupation or racist regimes" as "international conflicts." Many States have accepted that Protocol I solved the "freedom fighter problem" (Saul 2006, p. 201). Yet the disagreement is still there, as can be seen in the latest definitions of "terrorism" that have been proposed by the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement.
The closest that the UN has come to an agreed definition of terrorism was an implicit definition stated by the Security Council in 2004. The UNSC began using the term "terrorism" in its resolutions in 1985 (Saul 2005, p. 144). However, UNSC resolutions from 1985 to 2004 simply condemned certain specific acts as "terrorist," without attempting to characterise terrorism generally. As was explained in Sect. 3, Resolution 1373 even imposed obligations on States to combat terrorism without defining the term. Finally, in 2004, Resolution 1566 offered in paragraph 3 what can be taken as an implicit definition of the term, but that was not explicitly identified as such: Recalls that criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature.
There was no clause exempting liberation movements from the definition in that Resolution. Interestingly, this definition is silent on the motives of terrorists, so that the intuition that terrorism is a kind of political violence is lost (Saul 2005, p. 165). The only purpose that is mentioned is that of provoking "a state of terror," thus following the etymology of the term and identifying what probably is the most damaging aspect of the phenomenon. Some academics have also identified the intention of causing terror as the characteristic feature of terrorism. Wellman (1979, p. 250), for example, defined terrorism as "the use or attempted use of terror as a means of coercion;" and Cooper (2001, p. 883) defined it as "the intentional generation of massive fear by human beings for the purpose of securing or maintaining control over other human beings." The 2004 UNSC implicit definition, however, has not settled the matter. In 2006, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) gathered in Cuba and proposed a new definition. The more than 100 countries that conform the NAM wanted to broaden the definition in order to include "the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon" (Schmid 2011, p. 88 n. 12). Their resultant statement defined "terrorism" as: 39 Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for whatever purposes, wherever, by whomever, against whomsoever committed.
This definition is much broader and encompasses all acts that are criminal and aim at provoking a state of terror. And, right after the definition, the liberation movement clause is included ( § 118.4): "Terrorism should not be equated with the legitimate struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation for self-determination and national liberation." Finally, the NAM also condemns terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations," including acts of terrorism "in which States are directly or indirectly involved" ( § 119.1), thus reviving the issue of State terrorism.

Other Issues
There are also other, even if less controversial, points of contention beyond those of State terrorism and liberation movements. Some of them have already arisen: whether "terrorism" should include attacks against property-as well as to persons-and attacks against military personnel. The first definition of "terrorism" proposed in the international community, that of the 1937 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism, approved by the League of Nations, included crimes against property (Saul 2006, p. 174). The definition of UNSC Resolution 1566, quoted above, does not consider destruction of property, whereas the NAM definition is so broad that it may include it. Directive 2017/541 of the European Parliament on combating terrorism 40 explicitly mentions "destruction to a government or public facility, a transport system, an infrastructure facility, including an information system, a fixed platform located on the continental shelf, a public place or private property likely to endanger human life or result in major economic loss." The issue of whether terrorism can only be aimed at civilians or it also includes attacks against military personnel has also been contentious. The definition proposed by the League of Nations in 1937 referred to "criminal acts directed against a State," so it was specifically oriented toward crimes against State officials (Becker 2006, p. 85, n. 8). The 2004 UNSC implicit definition seems not to exclude military personnel, since it refers to criminal acts "including against civilians"-but not necessarily limited to them. The US State Department talks about "noncombatant targets," and such a term has been said to mean (Schmid 2011, p. 46): "in addition to civilians, military personnel (whether or not armed or on duty) who are not deployed in a war zone or a war-like setting." The emerging international consensus 39 14th Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement, § 118.3. 40 https:// eur-lex. europa. eu/ legal-conte nt/ en/ TXT/? uri= CELEX% 3A320 17L05 41. seems to be that terrorists can target "civilians and non-combatants," but several scholars have objected that the inclusion of non-combatants is not appropriate, given that the most important aspect of terrorism is that it is deliberately aimed against civilians (Ibid., p. 67).
And, finally, there is the issue of the political character. The proposal to include a reference to political motives in the definition of the League of Nations in 1937 was rejected (Saul 2006, p. 174). It is also absent in the 2004 UNSC implicit definition, which only mentions the purpose to "compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act." This may arguably not constitute a political but a merely criminal purpose, as when Pablo Escobar terrorised Colombia with bombs in the 1980s in order to force the government not to prosecute and extradite drug traffickers to the US, or when the Sicilian Mafia killed judge Falcone by bombing his car in 1992. However, in another implicit definition included in a Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, annexed to UNGA Resolution 49/60 (1994), 41 the political motive is explicit (my emphasis): Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.
Where does all that leave us? As this discussion has shown, in contrast to the considerably wide agreement about the consequences of application of the term, the conditions of application are a highly contested matter. The controversy over the definition of "terrorism" must be understood as a controversy over the conditions of application of the term. It is very doubtful, however, that an agreed definition can be found simply through the study of the phenomenon of terrorism and the identification of its essential characteristics-for there does not seem to be such a phenomenon with essential characteristics. As Tilly observed (2004, p. 12): "Terrorism is not a single causally coherent phenomenon. No social scientist can speak responsibly as though it were." And Schmid agrees (2011, p. 40): "we have to realize that there is no intrinsic essence to the concept of terrorism-it is a man-made construct and as such tends to reflect the interests of those who do the defining." Hence, the "you know it when you see it" attitude, which some legal scholars and even more politicians have adopted, is just wrong. As this section has illustrated, different people, with different concerns and interests, see it in different places. Schiappa (2003) insists that definitions do not capture the essence of a thing-for there is no such an essence-but the properties that are relevant to our purposes. Thus, definitions will always serve specific interests (p. 69). The controversy over the definition of "terrorism," then, can best be understood as a clash of interests, where each party argues for a set of conditions of application that could best serve their legal, moral and rhetorical purposes. This does not mean that "terrorism" is an empty word or that it should be abandoned-it all depends on what interests it serves. As Schiappa (p. 82) points out, we can "see definitional disputes as a matter of competing interests, while insisting that some interests are better than others." If the purpose of identifying certain violent acts as "terrorism" is to protect the security and freedom of all civilians during peacetime, then that certainly seems like a noble goal. However, admittedly, there are reasons to believe that this has not been the main purpose of the term so far. Stampnitzky (2017) argues that "terrorism" is generally used to identify any kind of violence that has three characteristics: it is illegitimate, it is political, and it is perpetrated by enemies. Who those "enemies" are is pretty clear: Collins (2002, p. 157) argues that "terrorism" typically singles out "violence committed by those who are opposed to U.S. policies in the world." Stampnitzky mentions several violent incidents that, because they were not perpetrated by people regarded as enemies, were not described as terrorist acts: for example, the attack of a white American with a small plane against an IRS building in 2010, and the Charleston church shooting by white supremacists in 2015, in which nine African Americans were killed. To these we could add the shootings in schools committed by white boys in the US, the misogynist attacks committed by so-called "incels" (involuntary celibates) such as the 2018 Toronto van attack, as well as the violent attacks against abortion clinics-including mail bombs. Certainly, an open discussion about what we are trying to achieve by identifying certain kinds of violence (and not others) as "terrorism" seems urgent.

Conclusion
When we attempt to analyse such a highly contested term as "terrorism," Brandom's inferentialist account of the meaning of concepts allows us to understand how there can be a big controversy over a term that lacks a precise reference. As I have attempted to show, even though the conditions of application of the term are far from clear, the consequences (at least the evaluative and programmatic consequences) can be considered fixed. It is safe to say that whatever it is that we end up labelling as "terrorist" will be morally censurable and legally punishableaccording to special laws. In an inferentialist sense, then, we know only part of the meaning of the term. The uncertainty and the controversy pertain only to the conditions of application of the term, which is what an agreed definition should pin down.
Although this has been largely a descriptive study, I believe that a lesson can be drawn from it. As I pointed out at the end of the last section, our interests, purposes, and values should be openly discussed when attempting to find a definition of "terrorism." Why do we need to single out a special kind of violence as "terrorist"? The main reason for that lesson is the fact that the consequences of application of the term are fixed, and therefore the issue should be to what acts and groups we want to attribute those consequences.
Certain proposals of definitions, especially in the academic realm, have attempted to ignore some of the consequences of application of the term. Schwenkenbecher (2012, p. 2), for example, argues that "the definition should not yet include any moral assessment of the act in question." Given the unavoidability of the evaluative consequences, I believe this is a mistake. The result of such a neutral definition will probably be an idiosyncratic definition of merely academic interest. Instead, if we really want to address the real concept in its actual, widespread use, it seems preferable to take into account what its consequences of application are. Primoratz (2004, p. 15), for instance, looks for a definition that "will capture the trait, or traits, of terrorism which cause most of us to view it with repugnance." Cooper (2001, p. 883) also argues that any definition must take into account the fact that there is no "good" terrorism-if one wants to defend certain terrorist acts, the most one can do is say that sometimes it is necessary to do bad things. Given the implications that the term "terrorism" has for virtually all of us, I believe this is the right path.
Acknowledgements A draft of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Argumentation and Politics, held at the University of Granada (Spain), 27-29 April, 2022. I am very grateful to Lilian Bermejo Luque, Javier Rodríguez Alcázar, Andrés Soria, Fabio Paglieri, Colin Guthrie King and Dima Mohammed, who gave me useful comments and draw my attention to certain weaknesses of my work. Even though I could not incorporate them all, their comments were very valuable. I must also thank two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.
Funding This research was possible thanks to the project PGC2018-095941-B-I00, "Prácticas argumentativas y pragmática de las razones," of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades -Agencia Estatal de Investigación. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature.
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