β Scribed by Barry Loewer; Marvin Belzer
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
In a recent article James Forrester 1 formulates a novel version of the good samaritan paradox. Although there is considerable discussion of good samaritan paradoxes in the deontic logic literature, Forrester's paradox may appear to be especially intractable. Hector-Nen Castafieda has called it "the deepest paradox of deontic logic".2 In this paper we will show how Forrester's paradox and other good Samaritan paradoxes can be resolved within a system of deontic logic 3-D which we have constructed and have applied to a number of issues concerning the logic of normative reasoning. 3 1. GOOD SAMARITAN PARADOXES Suppose that Arabella (the good Samaritan) ought to help Barbarella who has asked her to spare a dime. Now, Arabella will kill her husband's mistress next week and this person, unbeknownst to ArabeIla, happens to be Barbarella. Barbarella is the only person Arabella will kill next week. The paradox is that when these sentences are paraphrased into standard deontic logic (SDL) they seem to entail that Arabella ought to kill someone. The paradoxical argument in SDL is this: Let Hx and Kx stand for "Arabella helps x" and "Arabella kills x next week" and let b stand for "Barbarella". Then the paradoxical reasoning in SDL is as follows:
(1) (2) So (3) (4) So (5) OH ( ! xKx ) H( ! xKx ) entails ExKx 0 ( ExKx )
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