James Forrester

James William Forrester is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Wyoming in Wyoming.

Forrester is known for coming up with the "Paradox of Gentle Murder," or "Paradox of The Adverbial Samaritan," which became known as Forrester's paradox. 

Formulated in 1984, Forrester describes the paradox, roughly, as: even if murders occur, it seems obligatory for the murders to be gentle, but, on standard deontic logic, if it is obligatory to murder gently, it is obligatory to murder, and that seems wrong. More precisely, Forrester presents his paradox by deriving a contradiction from a situation and plausible principles of deontic logic.

The situation is specified by two legal rules followed by an action sentence:

1. It is obligatory that Smith not murder jones.
2. It is obligatory that if Smith murders jones, Smith murder Jones gently.
3. Smith murders Jones.

In practical terms, if someone commits a crime, then there is an obligation on someone else, such as the police, to know about it, and deduces from that obligation that the original action was itself obligatory.

The paradox was presented in The Journal of Philosophy, pp. 193-197 in April 1984, Vol. 81, No.4 issue.

Forrester described the paradox as "the most powerful version yet put forward" of Swedish logician and philosopher Lennart Åqvist's Good Samaritan paradox in deontic logic.

• Why You Should: Pragmatics of Deontic Speech (June 27, 1989)
• Being Good and Being Logical: Philosophical Groundwork for a New Deontic Logic (Jun3 30, 1996)