After September 11th, a debate arose in the media about whether the hijacking was a "cowardly" act. In many peoples' opinions, the terrorists were the...

Interestingly enough, I think it could be
argued that Aristotle would not have labeled these terrorists as cowards.

Famously, the idea of Aristotelian Virtues were characterized by "means"or
the balance between extremes. The virtue of "courage" was achieved through a balance
between cowardice and rashness when confronted with fear. Aristotle stated that fear is
inevitable; there is no escaping it. So the only way that we can act ethically in response to
this inevitability is to mitigate responses that tip the balance in favor of either completely
succumbing to fear or overcompensating for it (i.e., cowardice or rashness).

Thus, Aristotle would have considered the ethics of their actions in terms of achieving
a balance between extremes rather than as a binary between "cowardice" and
"courage."

When considering the actions of the terrorists in light
of this philosophy, it is important to consider the motivations of the terrorists. It is
inevitable that the terrorists encountered fear in this situation. However, they carried on with
what they had plannedclearly, this fear did not arrest them in their actions, so at least in
Aristotelean terms this act was not cowardly from the perspective of the terrorists (i.e.,
succumbing to fear).

However, as we've stated, not being cowardly is not
necessary equal to the virtue of "courage" for Aristotle. In order to be courageous,
one must also mitigate overcompensating for fear. Rashness, while opposite to cowardice, is also
amoral in these terms. From this perspective, consider both the motivations of the terrorists as
well as the consequences of their actions. The terrorists believed that dying in the act of
Jihad would guarantee them entrance into Paradise (as they were radical fundamentalist Muslims);
from their perspective, their actions were certainly not rash, as it was a calculated act
designed to help them achieve a desired goal.

However, this issue is
complicated by the design of their actions, which was to cause catastrophic harm to others. From
this perspective, their actions were not only rash (and therefore morally reprehensible) but
were rash to such an extreme that their overcompensation for fear claimed the lives of thousands
of other people. While the actions of the terrorists were certainly not "cowardly" in
terms of Aristotelian ethics, from the perspective of its impact, it be argued that the actions
of the terrorists were destructively rash and thus were antithetical to the Aristotle's virtue
of "courage."