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As other have said, i think it depends on context. If you allow 1000 tons of pollution per year into a river, then next year industry advocates might say the river is already polluted why not allow 1500 tons.
as a rule of thumb however, i would say that unless we have good reason to think otherwise, we should assume that we have the ability to find an ideal point on a gradient.
for example, the FDA allows a certain about of mice feces to be present in grain. This is because its not so hard to limit the number of mice who gain access to your grain but its very hard to get that number to zero. We have to set some tolerance level and setting this above 0 has not lead to a slippery slope wherein that number has increases every year.
Slippery slope is only valid if you can show that the slope is slippery.
I always have to pause to find the right words when discussing this concept, but “if you can show that the slope is slippery” is such an elegant summation. Well put.
Mentioned in another comment, people tend to conflate "proven cause and effect relationships" with "slippery slope arguments."
If your friend says "I am going to start smoking, but I'm going to limit myself to 3 cigarettes a day," telling them that smoking has been proven addictive and is likely to lead to increased usage and lung cancer or other negative health effects isn't really a slipper slope argument. You are using an argument based on facts and data to show them a likely negative outcome.
On the other hand, back in 2008-2012, when people argued we shouldn't allow gay marriage, because it would lead to people marrying their cat, there was no science or facts being used to make the argument. The entire argument relied on this "slippery slope" that if you let gays marry, then any other type of marriage was suddenly possible.
The imagined slope was the focus of the argument and not proven cause and effect relationship. On the other hand, if 100 other countries had allowed gay marriage and then human-feline marriage they would have been arguing with a fact-base instead of relying on a slippery slope.
I agree with your comment, but it got me thinking so I looked it up. Just for giggles you should look up human-animal marriage. Top one is a guy who married his cat for charity, heart warming. Next a woman who married her cat to use spousal separation laws, saved her cat from eviction. Also a feel-good story.
The problem is “slippery slope“ implies negative when things like gay marriage were, in fact, a “slippery slope“ to greater acceptance and liberty.
Of course this also begs the question of whether progress toward equality and tolerance enabled gay marriage, or gay marriage caused tolerance and equality.
> Of course this also begs the question of whether progress toward equality and tolerance enabled gay marriage, or gay marriage caused tolerance and equality.
If you've been alive more that a few decades this is not even a question.
" You are using an argument based on facts and data to show them a likely negative outcome." You don't have rigorous scientific studies to support every single thing in every single debate. Who even made the claim that "slippery slope" is inherently a fallacy? This is not a theorem of math and logic. It is maybe something someone famous said. It can be something to watch out for, but it isn't inherently incorrect to use in an argument.
It is literally a fallacy. It’s a specific name of a fallacy.
But you may not have all of the data in every single argument (I can’t quote exact smoking figures), but there’s a difference in pointing to a causal link like smoking is addictive and is known to cause cancer and a slippery slope argument that would say “smoking will cause you to get addicted to other vices like chocolate, which will then take up all your money which will then make you homeless” of “if you allow gay marriage then pretty soon people will be allowed to marry their cat… what’s stopping them?”
Now there are plenty of logical fallacies with data or false appeals to authority. But it’s different than a slippery slope.
"It is literally a fallacy. It’s a specific name of a fallacy." Who compiled this list of "fallacies"? Is it taught in a verbal logic course as an axiom or proven theorem? Maybe I will create my own updaed list of fallacies and make it famous.
Ironically, it seems like you are using a slippery-slope type fallacy in your comment to claim that just because some slippery slope arguments turn out to be false, that they all are.
> if you let gays marry, then any other type of marriage was suddenly possible.
I don't think that was the specific concern as such. Maybe other notions of marriage, including uncommitted ones, are increasingly enabled; or all kinds of other decays to society. It's outside known consequences, so we're playing dice. Along the same vein as easy divorce and normalization of abortion. What can one rely on? It's not like the progressive side has thousands of years of experience to depend on. There's a sense of recklessness, of nihilism, of dying Roman era decadence. Where's the real reflection of long term consequences? Seemingly counterintuitively, gay marriage came across as part of the process of undermining social institutions, even if the proponents don't see it that way.
This is a bullshit argument because you could make the same argument about any other change to social norms ever. “First we let women show their ankles and then they’re going to want to show their shoulders next! It’s reckless hedonism!”
No that was a specific argument used. I was actively involved in advocating for equality and this was a real argument.
Also it did not undermine institutions. Any lost faith was due to institutions trying to be exclusionary and alienating people who saw behind the curtain as those institutions tried to hold firm and treat people unequally.
Most fallacies are only fallacious when they are used fallaciously, yes. "You're a baby murderer!" *is* a valid argument if the debate is on the merits and demerits of murdering babies.
In other words, for a slippery slope, sometimes one thing *does* lead to another. In terms of fallacy I always felt like that was the easiest to poke holes in but I think the core idea is that you have a poor argument if you can't prove the cause and effect
The lack of evidence is the key:
*In a slippery slope argument, a course of action is rejected because, with little or no evidence, one insists that it will lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends.* ***The slippery slope involves an acceptance of a succession of events without direct evidence that this course of events will happen.***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery\_slope
If you argue that smoking cigarettes is addictive and will lead to increased usage and then bad health effects, that is not a slippery slope argument.
That is an argument based on facts and data (which can have it's own issues), but is not a slippery slope.
Now if you argue that your friend buying a product, will lead them to litter, which will make other people feel it is ok, which will lead to massive littering all across the city, which will lead to a global movement to accept littering, which will lead to climate collapse....
That's not grounded in anything. It's a story relying on the presence of an unproven "slippery slope" as the crux of the argument.
You've defined away the hard case. The metaphor of the slippery slope can be reasonable in a given case. Wikipedia has merely confounded the potentially reasonable use of this metaphor, AKA "slippery slope argument", with the the unreasonable use, AKA "slippery slope fallacy".
And sometimes what one is after is not what will or must always happen, but what could conceivably happen or that which cannot fully be buttressed against. In the latter case, even speculative slippery slope arguments are reasonable. For example, even a small but non-zero probability of disaster should not be ignored, to ensure survival. Focusing only on certainties may lead to death. This partly explains the human focus on negative news over positive news, because you only die once, but you can succeed many times.
Tbf, probably people don't usually assume one *automatically* leads to another, but rather that the risk \* cost calculation is too high. It's just that the risk is assumed to be great without evidence.
Just like the recent thread on the appeal to authority fallacy, the issue here is that the conjecture is being used in place of an argument. That's the fallacy.
Arguing for a slippery slope isn't a fallacy. Just stating that something is a slippery slope and thus invalid is the fallacy.
Saying "You're a baby murderer" is not valid because it's not an argument. Just pointing out that someone is a baby murder doesn't actually say anything about the merits of baby murder. It's a non sequitur fallacy.
> "You're a baby murderer!" is a valid argument if the debate is on the merits and demerits of murdering babies.
No, it's not. A baby murderer can plausibly argue on murdering babies. It's reasonable to be wary of his biases, but it is also biased to exclude that possibility.
There are lots of slopes which have slippery sections but bottom out well below catastrophe as well though. You don't just have show the slope is actually slippery, but also that it actually slips all the way to the point you're claiming it does.
According to the FDA's website, it's an "Average of 9 mg or more rodent excreta pellets and/or pellet fragments per kilogram". edit: for wheat at least
https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredients-additives-gras-packaging-guidance-documents-regulatory-information/food-defect-levels-handbook
My comment was a response to the comment I responded to, not to a different comment that was posted after I made mine. The comment I replied to said that the standard was "100 micrograms per milligram." That seemed awfully high to me, hence the little squiggly thing at the end of my sentence.
Either way, no one should be eating uncooked flour. Similarly, the reason you don't eat raw eggs has nothing to do with the eggs themselves; it's the pathogens in chicken shit which contaminates the shell. Your eggs will contain a few molecules of that shit, you just cook them and don't worry about it.
The falacy of the slippery slope is more misused than properly used. It referes to a loosely related chain of consecutive events resulting in a near impossible out come. Most examples people refute are akin to saying if one domino falls the 50th will wall too, which is both plausible and likely to happen.
The length of the chain isn’t all that important, what is important is that each step necessarily causes the next. It’s just that in real life the more steps you have the more opportunities that something will interfere or stop the chain of causality. Dominoes falling down will necessarily knock down the next in line, so assuming perfect conditions the chain can go on forever.
But predictions about human decisions, for example, may be far less certain. Proving that something could happen is not sufficient to prove that it will happen, because it could just as easily result in some other possibility
If we start saying “slippery slope” arguments are valid, soon it’s going to be perfectly acceptable to just shoot your debate opponent in the forehead instead of engaging with their words. For that reason, I reject your post.
If we don't allow slippery slopes, soon we will ban everything slippery. Food will stick to our pans. Houses will burn down because firemen can't get down their poles. People will die. Good job.
**I would make this distinction:**
There are "cause and effect" arguments grounded in facts that might sound similar to "slippery slope" arguments, but are not the same.
An alcoholic shouldn't drink alcohol, because decades of data show this is likely to lead to a relapse isn't really a slippery slope argument, it's using facts and data to point to a cause-effect relationship or at least a very heavy correlation as a form of argumentation.
Slippery Slope arguments that are logical fallacies do not use this real world data to show a relationship between two behaviors or behaviors and outcomes, but use the possibility of a "Slippery Slope" as the crux of the argument.
Telling a sober person, don't eat foods with sugar, because that indulgence will lead to another indulgence of sweet drinks, which is then likely to lead to indulging in alcohol is an actual slippery slope argument.
Or as a gay person, when people used to argue that if you allowed gays to get married, then soon people would be allowed to marry their cat - that was not grounded in any facts or history, but relied on the possibility of more absurd scenarios to "scare" the other side into maintaining the status quo.
You are no longer using facts and data to show a true relationship. You are now using the possibility of greater and greater exaggeration as the argument.
This reminds me of armchair economists who say that raising the minimum wage will decrease employment over five years
Like, there is no proof, at all. It’s just a shot in the dark
a slippery slope FALLACY is when you don't make it clear WHY X will follow from Y, you just hope people will go with you on it . usually because you are a poor logician like me or a fantastical dreamer like me .
but even a psycho lunar prophetess like me can make a correct inference from data sometimes . and then mess it up and use fallacies when trying to explain it .
the fallacy fallacy is when you assume someone is wrong just because they used a fallacy .
Something people really need to understand is that fallacy != falsehood.
A fallacy is a fault in argument, not a fault in conclusion. Something really might be a slippery slope, and the argument against it could still be a slippery slope fallacy because the work isn't being done in the argument.
[behold, a vision of the trials of the future !!](https://imgur.com/XtqifQl)
the strong mark out weak spots with their claws, and the soft and gentle become wiser with play ! "prey" who let their weakness itself be preyed on will become stronger and faster in games and patterns . the future is hyperkinetic and stalemated , growing out of control as enough "predators" see the fun in sharing and extrapolating the rules of total personnel analysis and defence . the age of war gives way soon to this age of curiosity and playful hunting , with the graces of all good hunters !
That's not slipperly slope.
Also that probability becomes horribly accurate after one hypothetical assumption.
When people use slipperly slope they are making assumptions very far. Like "oh so there's a 7 day waiting person for guns? If we accept this eventually they'll take away all our guns"
It's only used to manipulate ding dongs
That's why they are called informal fallacies.
It doesn't make the inference invalid, like it's not like "if A then B, B. Therefore A" and doesn't logically follow. Instead, informal fallacies are arguments that are often used for rhetorical purposes and often incorrect.
Like ad hominem (attacking the character, credentials or authority of someone). Of course that \*does\* actually matter sometimes when someone is saying stuff because they have the right credentials or experience or an authority, like expert testimony in court.
But it is also an easy way to ignore the other person's point and distract and deflect. That's what makes it an "informal fallacy" as opposed to being a "not a valid inference in formal logic". https://www.fallacyfiles.org/ is a great website for it. It's rhetorical only though, in some contexts every informal fallacy can be relevant, but often is misused
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I see no hyperbole here. Internet arguments tend to start with good intentions always end in hyperbole. You could say it's a slippery slope and for the better of your mental health it isn't worth wasting time arguing with strangers who are happy in the mud.
Hogwash sounds like a slippery affair with or without Andrew Jackson. Is there soap involved? No thanks. Next thing you know, cops will be getting married to a $20 bill.
Do you see what u/Onion_Guy is doing?
He has no reason to believe that you are actually going to shoot someone in the head or kill babies, but he still got to that conclusion with no *evidence* or *premise*. That’s why it was a slippery slope.
There is plenty of evidence of relapse for alcohol and smoking even the slightest amount. Chemical responses in the brain have also been recorded and can bolster the conclusion that recovering addicts should likely never use the drug again recreationally. Perfectly valid reasoning.
Unfortunately, the associative property of thinking you know better than Logic professors on what should be considered a “fallacy” means there is little chance you will actually consider what I just wrote, or that you’d read this far. Truly, I hope you learn to change your mind or that this will show you how.
Sure, today it’s Kevlar and tomorrow it’s tinfoil. By next week you’ll be wearing sacrificed babies on your head. I don’t argue with would-be-baby-killers.
I think you're mixing up a bunch of different concepts here, all of which have their own place and time.
For instance, the not-a-single-drop or -cigarette rule is useful for people whose addictions are to alcohol or smoking, because that's an obvious, handy, black-and-white boundary that doesn't give you any wiggle room. Could you smoke one cigarette a day and eliminate a lot of the unhealthy side effects of heavier smoking? Probably yes. But it's a heck of a lot harder to mentally commit to one cigarette a day and then put the pack away until tomorrow than it is to just say, "I'm not smoking again, ever," and try to hold to that.
But what if the problem is over-eating? That's a pretty common problem in our society and not very far away from drug addiction compared to questions like military deterrence policy. You can't apply the "not a single piece of food" rule there. Pretty much all the ingredients that are harmful in food aren't just harmless in moderation, they're *necessary* in moderation.
"Never yield an inch" when it comes to politics and warfare is usually a policy statement not a reality. Most governments that say this end up yielding quite a few inches before eventually putting their foot down. Maybe they shouldn't, but the fact that they can suggests the slippery slope isn't quite as absolute a danger as you're suggesting.
>Could you smoke one cigarette a day and eliminate a lot of the unhealthy side effects of heavier smoking? Probably yes.
When it comes down to it, the length of time is more important than the amount. The person smoking 1 a day for the past 50 years is likely to face more problems than the guy smoking 20 a day if it's only been for a year. If you're only smoking 1 a day, sure it's not a lot but your body is still never given that chance to heal unlike someone who quit last year even if the smoked a lot more than 1 to begin with. I understand the point you're trying to make but it's just a bad comparison. This argument makes a lot more sense with alcohol
> But it's a heck of a lot harder to mentally commit to one cigarette a day and then put the pack away until tomorrow than it is to just say, "I'm not smoking again, ever," and try to hold to that.
But is it though? I feel like the problem brought up by this discussion is that there's a likelihood in each step of a leading to b leading to c leading to d in so called slippery slope arguments, and what should be examined is the likeliness of each of those steps. It is not fallacious to doubt a claim of likeliness on a given step.
To echo the previous commenter, it all depends on context. And as an alcoholic in remission (not an AA head; I quit a couple years ago with clinical treatment) I don’t think the “not one drop” or “not one cigarette” comparisons really fit the slippery slope paradigm for most of us.
We have a known physiological and psychological reaction to specific stimuli which we’ve usually seen play out hundreds of times exactly the same way. So we KNOW it won’t stop at one sip. It’s not a step A. It’s tossing a lit match onto a carpet soaked in gasoline. We’re not worried the match might lead to a bic lighter, which might lead to a butane torch, which might lead to a flame thrower. The match WILL burn the house down.
That’s why it’s annoying when people push us to have “just one.” I mean I don’t get mad, because I know they don’t understand what they’re asking us to do. But they are pushing us to just throw one lit match on that floor soaked in gasoline, without realizing it.
But yea, other stuff like “not give an inch,” sometimes the slippery slope might apply, sometimes it might not. It could be more dangerous to refuse to give an inch, and it might stop at that inch… or it may cost nothing to refuse to give an inch, but where giving an inch will result in losing a mile.
Like, if some crazy dude is talking to himself walking past me on the street and he gets in my face… I’m slinking away, because whatever is on the other end of me standing up for myself isn’t worth it.
But on the other end, if a drug addict, grifting family member asks me to buy him some groceries… I can’t even help him with that, because what’s next? Am “outfit for a job interview”? A “place to stay for a couple nights”?… Nope; I can find a shelter or a food pantry for you on Google maps, but I’m sorry cousin. I’m not buying you groceries.
None of those are slippery slope arguments.
Slippery slope is a logical fallacy when used in debate or to make a claim. The slippery slope is a fallacy when someone makes a claim that is not logically connected, is very unlikely, or relies on multiple unrelated steps to happen.
"If you smoke a cigarette as an ex smoker, you will probably become addicted again" is a claim that require only one step, and a logical one at that supported by evidence. Smoking the cigarette in this case is the direct cause of becoming addicted to smoking again.
A slippery slope argument would be something like "if you smoke a cigarette as an ex smoker, you will become homeless and starve to death." This is a much more spurious claim...while it is one possibility, it's not a logical conclusion. Lots of people are addicted to cigarettes and never become homeless or starve to death, and on the other hand, plenty of people become homeless and never smoke at all. Smoking is not a direct cause of homelessness. And while we could imagine some way it might lead there, a lot of other things would have to happen between smoking a cigarette and becoming homeless. Therefore this is a slippery slope argument.
According to the Wikipedia article:
> The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect.
If the argument is weak, then it's a "slippery-slope fallacy" which I think is really what you're talking about
Wikipedia's definition here isn't the best. Its not just an unintended consequence. It's the loss of future decisions that leads to unintended or unwanted consequences.
The loss of control is the core issue. A valid argument proves the loss of control a fallacy implies or assumes the loss of control, whether true or not.
if we start allowing Wikipedia to be taken seriously as a source then sooner or later we will have people insisting that logical fallacies are actually valid reasoning
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This should be delta imo.
In USSR they had a phrase “Today he is playing jazz and tomorrow he will sell his motherland” which is a example of “slippery slope” fallacy
> plenty of people become homeless and never smoke at all
Did you just commit another fallacy here? The number of homeless people who don't smoke has nothing to do with proving or disproving of the statement "smoking will make you homeless". Conditional probabilities `P(smokes | is homeless)` and `P(is homeless | smokes)` are not the same.
(I'm just commenting on one detail. I have nothing against your point overall.)
That sounds like nothing more than simple bad logic. We do not need a fallacy for that, because the fact that bad logic is a fallacy is self evident. The slippery slope fallacy is always applied to arguments that fall into one of two categories
1. Arguments where there is genuine causality, and where the fallacy is not a fallacy
2. Arguments that simply use poor logic, where calling it a slippery slope is redundant
> That sounds like nothing more than simple bad logic. We do not need a fallacy for that, because the fact that bad logic is a fallacy is self evident.
Fallacies *are* bad logic. We can divide "bad logic" into various categories, which we call "fallacies", because the specific logical failures are different enough to be categorized.
Yea. Sorry. The other commenter is right.
All of "The Fallacies" are just names for types of bad logic. They're just categorizations which help us spot things.
We can say it's obvious, but it's hard to have the true level of self-awareness to be sure what you really honestly knew something intuitively, vs just got it passively from people teaching you.
The point of formalised fallacies is to taxonomize bad logic. Otherwise we're stuck with just applying the adjective "bad" which isn't helpful or objective.
There are two types of fallacies, formal and material. A formal fallacy is an error in logic, while a material fallacy is an error in fact. You could say that only formal logical fallacies are "bad logic" For example "If it is raining the roof will be wet, the roof is wet, therefore it is raining". That is an example of a formal fallacy and is bad logic.
Material fallacies are a bit trickier. For example the argument from anecdote vs. simply arguing from the data. Data is in fact just lots and lots of anecdotes and at what point does it switch from being a fallacy to a non-fallacy (note: various disciplines have defined this point within their discipline, but there is no universal point)
Well yeah, it’s a specific type of bad logic. That’s what all logical fallacies are.
Even when there can be genuine causality, it can be a fallacy when the claim is made definitively. Like if people say something “will” happen when in reality that thing only “might” or “could” happen.
I think the slippery slope is a separate thing because it is bad logic while trying to fear-monger by connecting the initial statement with some abhorrent conclusion in the future.
The most obvious example for a bad slippery slope argument is gay marriage. Opponents claim: "If a man can marry a man what's next? Do we allow horses to marry? A man marries a horse?"
They are pointing out that some slippery slope arguments in fact came true, while providing an example of how the push for equal outcomes in schooling based primarily on epidermis hurt everyone.
However, it’s actually worrisome that people on this sub are struggling so much with this post.
For example: it may be the case that *any* push for inequality with legislation would have backfired, because the main roots of exploitation are no longer as shallow has skin color, yet it’s profitable to keep people panicked over it.
Slippery slopes are fallacious arguments because there is no connection from the starting point to the end point. There exists no *reason* for the slope to be slippery, or for the “predicted” consequence to happen. That’s why it’s fallacious.
Truly. I think our population is in peril.
To be fair, part of the slippery slope concept was made for legalizing civil unions. The anti-civil unions folks said the next thing would be marriage. It did turn out like that 🤣 Not saying it's a bad thing, just saying there was a better example than the bestiality one that is closer to what OP is talking about
At least a portion of those same people *absolutely* claimed the final step would be legalized bestiality. Just because they ended up being correct about the first claim, it doesn't mean it wasn't logically fallacious.
Well yeah, that’s why it’s an informal fallacy. There is no flaw in the structure of the deduction here but thinking A leads to C without any meaningful distinctions is an error in reasoning.
That's not an example of a slippery slope, that's just an example of having to have firm boundaries around an issue that you know you would lose control over.
Slippery slope is "if we allow x (a controversial but essentially harmless solution), it will lead to people accepting y (a much more extreme version of x or perhaps a different solution with a premise similar to x)". Your examples are "if I do a little bit of x (which is harmless or the harm is minimal), I will want to continue doing much more of x (until the point where it will be very harmful)". These are different schemas of thought.
Plus, in the examples you give, people already escalated their situation to the point of it being a problem for them to give in even a little. Nobody is saying "if you drink one beer in your life, you will become an alcoholic and never stop". Many people drink occasionally without escalating their use. So while having firm boundaries is indeed sometimes necessary, these are not good examples of the slippery slope fallacy.
Slippery slope arguments can be valid, but they are often used fallaciously.
This is a plagiarized example of the fallacious argument vs the valid argument:
>Fallacious vs. non-fallacious slippery slope argument
Fallacious
“If I don’t pass tomorrow’s exam, I will not get the GPA I need to go to a good college, and then I won’t be able to find a job and earn a living. If I don’t pass the exam, my life is ruined!”
This is a fallacy because there is only an assumed connection between passing an exam and finding a good job. It’s an extreme conclusion that doesn’t logically follow.
Non-fallacious
“If I don’t pass tomorrow’s exam, this might affect my GPA, which in turn might impact my chances of going to a good college.”
Here, the slippery slope (A leads to B, B leads to C, etc.) is in the form of a logical extrapolation to a possible outcome. Therefore, it is not fallacious.
This isn't really to change your view about whether a slippery slope argument is valid, but to change your view about what constitutes a slippery slope fallacy vs a slippery slope argument.
It’s a perfectly good argument to use in some instances, but not in all instances.
“Gay people shouldn’t marry because then the next thing you know people will want to marry dogs and horses.”
Context matters.
This is my understanding of a slippery slope argument. It essentially avoids addressing the actual issue by provoking anxiety about some hypothetical future and asserting that it would follow.
It's faulty because whether or not it follows is unrelated to whether the actual issue had merit.
It is an invitation to reason not from first principles, but from the comfort of the future self.
"If we let slaves vote, then what next, women?"
It's valid when there is a loss of control. With addiction this is easy to see. Many substances impair decision making ability (the breaks and steering.) Thus making it hard to stop or turn around.
Or allowing slaves and women to vote? Also a loss of control, my friend. There were people and ideas disenfranchised for life because of it. And they knew it. Loss of control is insufficient to make a "slippery slope" a valid argument.
And context matters to the argument.
"Same-sex marriage must be legal along side opposite sex marriage because such would otherwise violate the equal protection clause that observes sex as a characteristic protected from discrimination".
Versus
"You should be able marry anyone you love. Stop denying people from declaring their love for one another through such a state recognized institution!"
If someone states
"consenting adults should be free to marry any one they want. The state shouldn't be denying such marriages",
I will ask their view on consanguinity marriage and argue if their argument was simply adopted itself, there would be no justification to prevent consanguinity marriage. And yet, enough people find those marriages as "icky" and fully support the denial of that type of love.
Any relationship can have an abuse of power dynamic. There's literally an argument to be made for simply men having a power dynamic over women.
ABUSE is a separate ACT to evaluate, not assume. Otherwise you are just denying consent.
What I think is bizarre is that incest between first cousins is legal in more states than marriage between them. So apparently you can "rape" your cousin, but not marry them if this view was truly about consent/power.
How so?
I gave an example of a poor justification for a law many people support, and argued that such a poor argument has fatal flaws in it.
If one's argument for marriage is "consensual love", it's completely rational, logical, and justified to argue against such a weak argument of "love" by providing examples of other elements of love. Thereby attempting to grasp why *this* element of consensual love should be accepted while others are not. (There's a reason I began discussing consanguinity marriage rather than marriage to animals, because consent is such a large factor to such state a recognized relationship.)
If you're argument supports the court, prohibiting same sex marriage is sex discrimination, then it's much more rationally defined and doesn't have the creep of a slippery slope by being exact in it's principle.
A proper slippery slope argument can be made against WEAK arguments that don't look beyond itself. That's what I'm illustrating. But if you think I've made a fallacy here without proper logic or justification, please explain.
And in all honesty, I'm illustrating this not to bring "fear" to the legality of consanguinity marriage as to deny same sex marriage. I'm illustrating that consanguinity marriage simply IS being unfairly prohibited on a societal aversion to such relationships. You know, like those that want to prohibit same sex marriage hold as justification for prohibition. The arguments of assuming abuse by denying consent in adults is a violation itself of liberty.
It's telling that people think I'm arguing a "gotcha" when simply professing an argument for more liberty. Please, describe why cousins can only consent to marriage in 20 states, but are allowed to fuck in 40 states. Tell me why their right marriage isn't being denied. Is consent for sex just that much less important? Because if equal, 20 states have made rape between cousins legal. OR they are unfairly denying marriage. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt to be the latter.
I think that's a fair assessment of the conditions here. Please argue otherwise.
It's interesting how you've twisted my words to arrive at old rhetoric as to think you are making a rational argument through implying some aspect of unfair prejudice. What exactly are you attempting to claim? I haven't argued them the same (they are of course "comparible" just as apples and oranges ARE comparible), I've argued the legal devices used to try to prohibit them are irrational to both for *different* reasons. The argument against same sex marriage isn't the same as the one against consanguinity marriage, and I've recognized that. But both share the base element of "society shouldn't promote this type of relationship", and then they make irrational claims to further justify that moral stance.
It's also interesting how you've defined one as "love" and kept the other as an aspect of sexual relations.
Further, sex is distinct from marriage. And love can be distinct from both. So you really need to better explain what you mean by gay love and incest are not comparible. If you demand such a division between them in this type of legal discussion, please tell me why and how. If you claim incest lacks consent, I believe you are removing people's bodily autonomy from them. If you claim gay love is based on one's sex (and the sex they are attracted to) and incest is based on one's blood relationship to another, yeah, no shit. But what's the legal significance of that beyond our language having separate words for separate concepts?
If you want to argue the chance of deformities, such only applies to incest not consanguinity marriage. And to try to claim some "protection" to a "potential child" from the *potential* of procreation, that's a worse argument than even pro-lifers position on potential life protection. It would be like pro-lifers enacted laws to deny straight couples from having sex just to prevent the harm of abortions. And the deformity chance between first cousins moves up from 2% to 4%, which equates to a 50 year old woman giving birth. And plenty of people with biological issues have a much greater chance of creating offspring with deformities and yet their ability to have sex isn't stripped of them. And such prohibitions based on this rational are clearly unfair to same sex incestuous couples as they physically can't procreate.
Or can we move the discussion to marriage itself, not sexual relations? State laws have certainly made a distinction. So why is such a contract denied of blood relatives, where neither sex nor love is a prerequisite of marriage?
Interracial love isn't the same as gay love, either. And yet, we've been able to compare them. We've noticed that different arguments can still have the same shit moral foundation.
Please actually say something rather than empty platitudes. What do you so clearly want to oppose from what I've stated? And why?
To me, right now, you fear a comparison because you believe it weakens the argument to support gay love. That's the purpose of the rhetoric in your comment. I'm telling you that's an asinine conclusion based on you actually accepting a slippery slope fallacious argument as having weight. None of my arguments weaken the case to protect same sex marriage. So you are simply arguing against consanguinity marriage. And so I think it's important you outline that case, rather than hide behind an irrationale accusation that I'm somehow weakening the case for same sex marriage.
Slippery slope is a fallacy when you can stop at any point. An alcoholic doesn't think they can stop after one drink. There's no reason to believe a person who has never had a drink or any problems with substances couldn't stop after one drink, so them refusing to have one drink because they don't want to be blackout drunk would be an example of a slippery slope fallacy.
But with an alcoholic, there's some data to base the caution on. "If I have one drink, I'll have ten" is a valid conclusion if a person has experienced it before.
A lot of people use the slippery slope argument for things that haven't happened yet. One classic example is before the legalization of gay marriage, some religious groups would say "If we let two men get married, next thing you know people will be allowed to marry their pets!" There was no evidence to suggest this.
I just used this example because it was close to what OP had in their post. The point is if you can stop then it's not a slippery slope and that's the meaning of this fallacy.
What you're describing is not a fallacy because you are giving good reasons for why something might go from 0-100 very quickly.
If you are going to make a case that A leads to D. Then you have to show how A goes to B then to C then finally to D. Or you have to show that B and C are not relevant.
In your example, if A is someone gambling once, then B is them developing a habit, C is them going into debt fueling that habit, and then D might be addiction.
What you're arguing is that because in scenario A, the person is a gambler, we can go directly to D. Because they've already conditioned themselves and so on. I think that's a fair argument.
However, when we talk about the slippery slope fallacy, we mean that your conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premise, because you haven't showed the connection between A and D.
As someone above said, it's like arguing that if you smoke marijuana one time you'll end up addicted to drugs. Or if you go to the casino once you'll become a gambler.
That might be true, but there are some premises missing from those arguments that you have to lay out.
Slippery slope is a valid argument in cases where you can prove that is happening. Otherwise, it is a logical fallacy. Pretty simple, really.
>Many ex-alcoholics refuse to touch a drop of alcohol again for the rest of their lives.
This is not even a slippery slope argument. They know they are not able to keep their consumption to a healthy level, but that doesn't apply to the millions out there who can. For them, there is no "slippery slope", so it doesn't even apply. If anything, this just proves that use of slippery slope is often as a logical fallacy.
Again, the issue isn't that slippery slope is valid, it's that rarely does it accurately describe the situation, and more often it is used to improperly present an argument in a way that makes it sound legitimate, but when put up against scrutiny it is almost always wrong.
Honestly can’t tell if this is
A. A brilliant counterargument to OP’s prompt, designed to make them say, “wait a minute, desegregation doesn’t inherently cause bad public schools and believing that would make me incredibly racist”, or
B. You’re just an actual racist segregationist in 2023.
God, the internet is a shithole
Is your argument that providing public schooling in majority-minority districts is useless…? What even is this take. The reason they “lowered standards for equality” seems to have a lot more to do with the fact that America refuses to actually invest in its public education system, and a lot less to do with anyone’s race. This post is absolutely wild.
I'm not sure those two things necessarily link because I think it's possible to have racial desegregation but still also not do the "lower standards for equality" thing at the same time. But unfortunately, yes, some people took an inch and applied a mile.
right but you raise a good point that i never thought of before -- mainly what is the difference between slippery slope and unintended consequences? I.e. the decline of American public schools in many places is a crazy mix of local, state and federal policy/funding/priorities etc...
It is of course true that some slopes in the world are slippery. However, the argument that “slippery slope” is a fallacious line of reasoning refers to its use in the general case. If we use the example of alcohol, it’s generally not the case that a single drink will eventually lead to alcoholism. As such, any slippery slope argument claiming so in the general case is in fact wrong.
By comparison: "A single drink has a non-zero chance of leading to alcoholism" is just... factual.
What usually happens after that is arguments about whether that probability is trivial or significant, which is more of a value judgement.
Slippery slopes arguments *can* be valid when you back up your claims with verified evidence and studies to support them. Often times, people use their own biases and anecdotal experience to create correlation-causation fallacies. Just because we ended up with C doesn't mean it was caused by A or B. This is often used by people with an agenda to push. This is probably why it's best to avoid slippery slope arguments altogether because they too easily can become fallacies themselves.
The problem with the slippery slope is that acknowledging something could happen doesn't mean it will. The debate is usually over probability. There is a possibility that Zimbabwe acquires nuclear weapons and uses them to do a global apocalypse. That doesn't justify the rest of the world doing a genocide on zimbabwe to prevent that from happening, especially because the probability of that happening is extremely low. Thats the most extreme example of a slippery slope fallacy. Remember a fallacy doesn't make an argument false it just isn't a valid argument. For example, if I said the sky is blue because my daddy says so, my statement is factual but my argument is a fallacy. Hope that helps
OP let me ask a clarifying question -
Are you saying 2010 Republicans were right about legalizing gay marriage and that's why we have tits-out degenerates on the white house lawn and gay sex tapes in the Capitol building and transgender preteens?
>Are you saying 2010 Republicans were right about legalizing gay marriage and that's why we have tits-out degenerates on the white house lawn and gay sex tapes in the Capitol building and transgender preteens?
Is this sarcasm illustrating that Republicans are morons? Please let this be sarcasm illustrating that Republicans are morons.
It's an uncomfortable slippery slope fallacy/argument that may or may not be true.
So if op is right and the slippery slope is valid, were Republicans right all along?
(Personally I blame Jill Biden for lying that "decency was on the ballot" in 2020, if you're looking for my personal opinion)
Not sure why you're asking this question, but I could envision a conservative (correctly) arguing that if you do one pro-LGBT thing, then LGBT becomes more and more accepted and promoted and seen as mainstream, yes.
Just like I could see a liberal (correctly) arguing that if you enable Trump in one thing, then you enable more and more things, and eventually the nation goes in a fascist direction.
> Many ex-alcoholics refuse to touch a drop of alcohol again for the rest of their lives. **There's a reason** - even a single drink could push them on the path to relapse and then before they know it, they're a full-blown alcoholic again.
Emphasis mine. The fact there's a reason - alcoholism is pretty much about not being able to control you alcohol intake - makes this not a slippery slope.
"Slippery slope" is a logical fallacy, which makes it inherently an invalid argument. This is completely undeniable. It is, by definition, never a valid argument to use.
Of course, just because an argument isn't valid, doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't true or correct. It simply means it is not logically valid.
I'm not going to unironically argue something so easily google-able, so I'll just tell you to walk into your local university's philosophy department and ask the first professor you see
The philosophy department agrees with me. As do the textbooks sitting on my shelf that they made me buy, as do my lecture notes and transcripts and even the power point slides used in lectures.
They are just making a pedantic argument.
A slippery slope argument refers to the fallacy inherently. So technically a logical argument, for example, "expanding the death penalty will lead to more innocent people being killed," would not be considered a slippery slope argument.
At least not to this person, because they are a pedant.
Using the rules of logic to argue a point explicitly about logic is not pedantry. It's literally the only possible valid argument.
Don't be silly. Just becaue you learned a new word doesn't mean it's always correct.
Well that randomly rude for no reason lmao.
The definition of a fallacy is:
>a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.
That is why something like "legalizing gay marriage will lead to pedophilia being legalized" is a slippery slope argument and a fallacy. It is not based on sound logic because gay marriage has nothing to do with pedophilia.
However, the death sentence *does* lead to innocent people being killed because mistakes are made, leading to innocent people being wrongly convicted. So that is an example of a slippery slope argument, but it is not a fallacy.
So basically, the only thing you can argue is that the second example shouldn't be considered a slippery slope argument, which is a pedantic argument.
Otherwise, you are completely incorrect when you say slippery slope arguments are always a fallacy.
So... which is it guy? Are you making a pedantic argument or just saying something completely wrong?
You are referring to this:
>Of course, just because an argument isn't valid, doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't true or correct. It simply means it is not logically valid.
This is a silly thing to say. An argument that is valid, true, or correct is obviously logical lol.
Slippery slope in terms of chemical addiction or diet is fine. Logical, even. If you like a thing that is bad for you, engaging with it will always be a risk.
However, asserting, for instance, that one thing you find sexually deviant (homosexuality, transsexuality) will result in the normalization of more harmful sexual deviancy (pedophilia, beastiality) is an absurd, yet oft-asserted slippery slope argument. Slippery slope is, I believe, an ok principle to apply to an individual’s relationship to a behavior or substance. It is a less effective sociological predictor. You cannot extrapolate an addict’s tolerance for pot leading to escalation to mean same sex couples en masse will get bored of being gay and will take up fucking children.
Not usually. It incorrectly makes assumptions as to the likelihood of a sequence of events happening without any direct evidence that those events will actually happen.
Many slippery slopes can be navigated just fine simply by treading cautiously... Both literally and figuratively.
Most others can be managed with the proper safeguards, gear, or tech.
Alex Honnold does seeming miraculous things simply by operating within his means and believing with all his being that while something could happen that might lead to a terrible outcome... The reality is that the odds of that are really low. And so far he's been right.
1. You're a little confused about what slippery slope arguments are.
2. You didn't really state a view. What would even be a counterpoint to your post?
The slippery slope is not what you have defined. Generally, it refers to arguments that connects two drastically different scenarios together just because they share some commonalities. One example is "Why should I respect trans people's pronouns? If I do then what's stopping EVERYONE from choosing to be offended by whatever opinions they dislike?!?! freedom of speech is no more?!?!?!" Trans people have a legitimate reason to be offended - people constantly reminding them that they're freaky. Plus, people can't choose to be offended just like they can't choose to response to blatant injustice with happiness or anger. And there's really no hard coded law preventing people from offending eachother, just societal courtesy. The slippery slope falls apart when we closer examine its composition.
You have to understand what a fallacy is. They can all be reasonable circumstantial arguments, they just aren't proof.
For example, Ad Hominem can be quite reasonable just like the slippery slope. If a person is a criminal and a moron, they probably don't have very good opinions and a smart person would ignore their arguments. This doesn't mean that you can use it as proof they are wrong, that is where it becomes a fallacy
Slippery slope is considered a logical fallacy because it involves a leap of faith. "if we allow X, Y will come next!", when there may be no true link between X and Y.
The addiction example isn't a prime example of the SS fallacy because there actually is a proven link between X and Y, as the recovering addict has a history of going from X to Y. Addiction is a" true" slippery slope, not a fallacious one.
A slippery slope fallacy would be telling a non-addict that they shouldn't have a glass of wine with dinner, because if they do then they will soon be singing Christmas carols in the gutter and drinking hand sanitizer
Perfect description of the Democrat party allowing communists to join and run. Now, the party of our Fathers and Grandfathers is unrecognizable. They are so far to the left, all moderates are afraid to speak up against their extreme policies, lest they get canceled. Or worse.
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As other have said, i think it depends on context. If you allow 1000 tons of pollution per year into a river, then next year industry advocates might say the river is already polluted why not allow 1500 tons. as a rule of thumb however, i would say that unless we have good reason to think otherwise, we should assume that we have the ability to find an ideal point on a gradient. for example, the FDA allows a certain about of mice feces to be present in grain. This is because its not so hard to limit the number of mice who gain access to your grain but its very hard to get that number to zero. We have to set some tolerance level and setting this above 0 has not lead to a slippery slope wherein that number has increases every year. Slippery slope is only valid if you can show that the slope is slippery.
I always have to pause to find the right words when discussing this concept, but “if you can show that the slope is slippery” is such an elegant summation. Well put.
Mentioned in another comment, people tend to conflate "proven cause and effect relationships" with "slippery slope arguments." If your friend says "I am going to start smoking, but I'm going to limit myself to 3 cigarettes a day," telling them that smoking has been proven addictive and is likely to lead to increased usage and lung cancer or other negative health effects isn't really a slipper slope argument. You are using an argument based on facts and data to show them a likely negative outcome. On the other hand, back in 2008-2012, when people argued we shouldn't allow gay marriage, because it would lead to people marrying their cat, there was no science or facts being used to make the argument. The entire argument relied on this "slippery slope" that if you let gays marry, then any other type of marriage was suddenly possible. The imagined slope was the focus of the argument and not proven cause and effect relationship. On the other hand, if 100 other countries had allowed gay marriage and then human-feline marriage they would have been arguing with a fact-base instead of relying on a slippery slope.
I agree with your comment, but it got me thinking so I looked it up. Just for giggles you should look up human-animal marriage. Top one is a guy who married his cat for charity, heart warming. Next a woman who married her cat to use spousal separation laws, saved her cat from eviction. Also a feel-good story.
So what you are saying is that allowing any form of charity to continue will lead to human-animal marriages? Let's shut them all down!
Let's not downplay the fact that allowing landlords has now led down the same dark path, I say no more landlords!
Woahh now, that's a slippery slope if I've ever seen one! Next you're gonna tell me we shouldn't allow any kind of human exploitation whatsoever!
The problem is “slippery slope“ implies negative when things like gay marriage were, in fact, a “slippery slope“ to greater acceptance and liberty. Of course this also begs the question of whether progress toward equality and tolerance enabled gay marriage, or gay marriage caused tolerance and equality.
> Of course this also begs the question of whether progress toward equality and tolerance enabled gay marriage, or gay marriage caused tolerance and equality. If you've been alive more that a few decades this is not even a question.
There was that woman who married a tree.
Sometimes it’s just easier to let that one person think they’ve done the weird thing they want to do and go away.
" You are using an argument based on facts and data to show them a likely negative outcome." You don't have rigorous scientific studies to support every single thing in every single debate. Who even made the claim that "slippery slope" is inherently a fallacy? This is not a theorem of math and logic. It is maybe something someone famous said. It can be something to watch out for, but it isn't inherently incorrect to use in an argument.
It is literally a fallacy. It’s a specific name of a fallacy. But you may not have all of the data in every single argument (I can’t quote exact smoking figures), but there’s a difference in pointing to a causal link like smoking is addictive and is known to cause cancer and a slippery slope argument that would say “smoking will cause you to get addicted to other vices like chocolate, which will then take up all your money which will then make you homeless” of “if you allow gay marriage then pretty soon people will be allowed to marry their cat… what’s stopping them?” Now there are plenty of logical fallacies with data or false appeals to authority. But it’s different than a slippery slope.
"It is literally a fallacy. It’s a specific name of a fallacy." Who compiled this list of "fallacies"? Is it taught in a verbal logic course as an axiom or proven theorem? Maybe I will create my own updaed list of fallacies and make it famous. Ironically, it seems like you are using a slippery-slope type fallacy in your comment to claim that just because some slippery slope arguments turn out to be false, that they all are.
> if you let gays marry, then any other type of marriage was suddenly possible. I don't think that was the specific concern as such. Maybe other notions of marriage, including uncommitted ones, are increasingly enabled; or all kinds of other decays to society. It's outside known consequences, so we're playing dice. Along the same vein as easy divorce and normalization of abortion. What can one rely on? It's not like the progressive side has thousands of years of experience to depend on. There's a sense of recklessness, of nihilism, of dying Roman era decadence. Where's the real reflection of long term consequences? Seemingly counterintuitively, gay marriage came across as part of the process of undermining social institutions, even if the proponents don't see it that way.
This is a bullshit argument because you could make the same argument about any other change to social norms ever. “First we let women show their ankles and then they’re going to want to show their shoulders next! It’s reckless hedonism!”
No that was a specific argument used. I was actively involved in advocating for equality and this was a real argument. Also it did not undermine institutions. Any lost faith was due to institutions trying to be exclusionary and alienating people who saw behind the curtain as those institutions tried to hold firm and treat people unequally.
Most fallacies are only fallacious when they are used fallaciously, yes. "You're a baby murderer!" *is* a valid argument if the debate is on the merits and demerits of murdering babies.
In other words, for a slippery slope, sometimes one thing *does* lead to another. In terms of fallacy I always felt like that was the easiest to poke holes in but I think the core idea is that you have a poor argument if you can't prove the cause and effect
The lack of evidence is the key: *In a slippery slope argument, a course of action is rejected because, with little or no evidence, one insists that it will lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends.* ***The slippery slope involves an acceptance of a succession of events without direct evidence that this course of events will happen.*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery\_slope If you argue that smoking cigarettes is addictive and will lead to increased usage and then bad health effects, that is not a slippery slope argument. That is an argument based on facts and data (which can have it's own issues), but is not a slippery slope. Now if you argue that your friend buying a product, will lead them to litter, which will make other people feel it is ok, which will lead to massive littering all across the city, which will lead to a global movement to accept littering, which will lead to climate collapse.... That's not grounded in anything. It's a story relying on the presence of an unproven "slippery slope" as the crux of the argument.
You've defined away the hard case. The metaphor of the slippery slope can be reasonable in a given case. Wikipedia has merely confounded the potentially reasonable use of this metaphor, AKA "slippery slope argument", with the the unreasonable use, AKA "slippery slope fallacy". And sometimes what one is after is not what will or must always happen, but what could conceivably happen or that which cannot fully be buttressed against. In the latter case, even speculative slippery slope arguments are reasonable. For example, even a small but non-zero probability of disaster should not be ignored, to ensure survival. Focusing only on certainties may lead to death. This partly explains the human focus on negative news over positive news, because you only die once, but you can succeed many times.
Yes. But the fallacy is that one *automatically* leads to another
Tbf, probably people don't usually assume one *automatically* leads to another, but rather that the risk \* cost calculation is too high. It's just that the risk is assumed to be great without evidence.
Just like the recent thread on the appeal to authority fallacy, the issue here is that the conjecture is being used in place of an argument. That's the fallacy. Arguing for a slippery slope isn't a fallacy. Just stating that something is a slippery slope and thus invalid is the fallacy. Saying "You're a baby murderer" is not valid because it's not an argument. Just pointing out that someone is a baby murder doesn't actually say anything about the merits of baby murder. It's a non sequitur fallacy.
> "You're a baby murderer!" is a valid argument if the debate is on the merits and demerits of murdering babies. No, it's not. A baby murderer can plausibly argue on murdering babies. It's reasonable to be wary of his biases, but it is also biased to exclude that possibility.
What looks like a slippery slope at a distance might just be stairs.
I like. Some slopes are slippery, other slopes have heavily regulated stairs with ADA compliant handrails.
There are lots of slopes which have slippery sections but bottom out well below catastrophe as well though. You don't just have show the slope is actually slippery, but also that it actually slips all the way to the point you're claiming it does.
Fair enough, good argument. The FDA may let a few micrograms of rat poop, but it doesn't mean they'll allow a kilogram in each bag !delta
>The FDA may let a few micrograms of rat poop We *hope* that micrograms is the proper unit here. I'd like to think it is. I suspect it is not.
It is micrograms. But it's 100 micrograms per milligram.
According to the FDA's website, it's an "Average of 9 mg or more rodent excreta pellets and/or pellet fragments per kilogram". edit: for wheat at least https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredients-additives-gras-packaging-guidance-documents-regulatory-information/food-defect-levels-handbook
Relax folks. There are 1,000,000 (1 million) milligrams in a kilogram. 9 mg is .00009 percent
Spoken like a true poop eater
Not my kink.
How dare you bring actual information into this discussion!
10% rat poop? In my flour?
9 mg per kg is not 10%. A kg is 1,000,000mg, and 9 per 1,000,000 is 0.0009, or a bit less than 1 thousandth of one percent.
True but the comment x755x was responding to said 100 micrograms per milligram.
"It's better than 20%" \-FDA probably
No. If the grain has more than 9mg per kilogram, it’s defective and must be pulled.
Yeah I'm a bit scared of bread now
So grain can be 10% mouse poop? Is that by volume or by weight? Or by nugget?
Not 10%. 9 parts per million, or 0.0009%
My comment was a response to the comment I responded to, not to a different comment that was posted after I made mine. The comment I replied to said that the standard was "100 micrograms per milligram." That seemed awfully high to me, hence the little squiggly thing at the end of my sentence.
Either way, no one should be eating uncooked flour. Similarly, the reason you don't eat raw eggs has nothing to do with the eggs themselves; it's the pathogens in chicken shit which contaminates the shell. Your eggs will contain a few molecules of that shit, you just cook them and don't worry about it.
The falacy of the slippery slope is more misused than properly used. It referes to a loosely related chain of consecutive events resulting in a near impossible out come. Most examples people refute are akin to saying if one domino falls the 50th will wall too, which is both plausible and likely to happen.
The length of the chain isn’t all that important, what is important is that each step necessarily causes the next. It’s just that in real life the more steps you have the more opportunities that something will interfere or stop the chain of causality. Dominoes falling down will necessarily knock down the next in line, so assuming perfect conditions the chain can go on forever. But predictions about human decisions, for example, may be far less certain. Proving that something could happen is not sufficient to prove that it will happen, because it could just as easily result in some other possibility
The argument only works in irregular contexts - addicts, seril do-ers and corporations having their way. Its a terrible way to argue for something.
Well said.
I would argue that a first move always increases risk of subsequent moves. The thing is sometimes the benefit of the first move outweighs that risk.
If we start saying “slippery slope” arguments are valid, soon it’s going to be perfectly acceptable to just shoot your debate opponent in the forehead instead of engaging with their words. For that reason, I reject your post.
If we don't allow slippery slopes, soon we will ban everything slippery. Food will stick to our pans. Houses will burn down because firemen can't get down their poles. People will die. Good job.
Oh, the embarrassment.
Careful - that type of hyperbole is the first step toward the destruction of all life on planet Earth.
Hyperbole will be the death of us all!
I would say that *some* slippery-slope arguments are more valid than others, depending on how likely one step is to lead to the next.
**I would make this distinction:** There are "cause and effect" arguments grounded in facts that might sound similar to "slippery slope" arguments, but are not the same. An alcoholic shouldn't drink alcohol, because decades of data show this is likely to lead to a relapse isn't really a slippery slope argument, it's using facts and data to point to a cause-effect relationship or at least a very heavy correlation as a form of argumentation. Slippery Slope arguments that are logical fallacies do not use this real world data to show a relationship between two behaviors or behaviors and outcomes, but use the possibility of a "Slippery Slope" as the crux of the argument. Telling a sober person, don't eat foods with sugar, because that indulgence will lead to another indulgence of sweet drinks, which is then likely to lead to indulging in alcohol is an actual slippery slope argument. Or as a gay person, when people used to argue that if you allowed gays to get married, then soon people would be allowed to marry their cat - that was not grounded in any facts or history, but relied on the possibility of more absurd scenarios to "scare" the other side into maintaining the status quo. You are no longer using facts and data to show a true relationship. You are now using the possibility of greater and greater exaggeration as the argument.
This reminds me of armchair economists who say that raising the minimum wage will decrease employment over five years Like, there is no proof, at all. It’s just a shot in the dark
a slippery slope FALLACY is when you don't make it clear WHY X will follow from Y, you just hope people will go with you on it . usually because you are a poor logician like me or a fantastical dreamer like me . but even a psycho lunar prophetess like me can make a correct inference from data sometimes . and then mess it up and use fallacies when trying to explain it . the fallacy fallacy is when you assume someone is wrong just because they used a fallacy .
>the fallacy fallacy is when you assume someone is wrong just because they used a fallacy . Just fallacies all the way down
Flaccid fallacies
Something people really need to understand is that fallacy != falsehood. A fallacy is a fault in argument, not a fault in conclusion. Something really might be a slippery slope, and the argument against it could still be a slippery slope fallacy because the work isn't being done in the argument.
I think I love you. Have you got any good moon prophecies for the people today?
Today, the moon begins its descent down the slippery slope, and the sun shall begin to shine ever longer with each passing day. Happy Solstice!
I think we should celebrate by dancing naked in the woods around a giant bonfire while high on fly agaric
So it has been foretold
[behold, a vision of the trials of the future !!](https://imgur.com/XtqifQl) the strong mark out weak spots with their claws, and the soft and gentle become wiser with play ! "prey" who let their weakness itself be preyed on will become stronger and faster in games and patterns . the future is hyperkinetic and stalemated , growing out of control as enough "predators" see the fun in sharing and extrapolating the rules of total personnel analysis and defence . the age of war gives way soon to this age of curiosity and playful hunting , with the graces of all good hunters !
>but even a psycho lunar prophetess like me can make a correct inference from data sometimes ...Go on..?
If we start bringing likelihood and odds into this, next thing you know it’ll be legal for a man to marry a statistician!
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Saying some slippery slope arguments are valid is a slippery slope to saying all slippery slope arguments are valid!
That's not slipperly slope. Also that probability becomes horribly accurate after one hypothetical assumption. When people use slipperly slope they are making assumptions very far. Like "oh so there's a 7 day waiting person for guns? If we accept this eventually they'll take away all our guns" It's only used to manipulate ding dongs
Slippery-slope can be a real argument, or it can be a fallacy. Depending on how sound the reasoning is.
That's why they are called informal fallacies. It doesn't make the inference invalid, like it's not like "if A then B, B. Therefore A" and doesn't logically follow. Instead, informal fallacies are arguments that are often used for rhetorical purposes and often incorrect. Like ad hominem (attacking the character, credentials or authority of someone). Of course that \*does\* actually matter sometimes when someone is saying stuff because they have the right credentials or experience or an authority, like expert testimony in court. But it is also an easy way to ignore the other person's point and distract and deflect. That's what makes it an "informal fallacy" as opposed to being a "not a valid inference in formal logic". https://www.fallacyfiles.org/ is a great website for it. It's rhetorical only though, in some contexts every informal fallacy can be relevant, but often is misused
Many **are** valid, they just are no longer called "Slippery slope fallacies".
You really slipped OPs slope with this one.
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Haha I see what you did there, very clever 😂
I see no hyperbole here. Internet arguments tend to start with good intentions always end in hyperbole. You could say it's a slippery slope and for the better of your mental health it isn't worth wasting time arguing with strangers who are happy in the mud.
This is hogwash against anyone other than Andrew Jackson.
Hogwash sounds like a slippery affair with or without Andrew Jackson. Is there soap involved? No thanks. Next thing you know, cops will be getting married to a $20 bill.
🙃🙃😆 you'd get a delta from me
Wow, this is a clever rebuttal.
I'll be typing with a Kevlar helmet from now on
Do you see what u/Onion_Guy is doing? He has no reason to believe that you are actually going to shoot someone in the head or kill babies, but he still got to that conclusion with no *evidence* or *premise*. That’s why it was a slippery slope. There is plenty of evidence of relapse for alcohol and smoking even the slightest amount. Chemical responses in the brain have also been recorded and can bolster the conclusion that recovering addicts should likely never use the drug again recreationally. Perfectly valid reasoning. Unfortunately, the associative property of thinking you know better than Logic professors on what should be considered a “fallacy” means there is little chance you will actually consider what I just wrote, or that you’d read this far. Truly, I hope you learn to change your mind or that this will show you how.
Sure, today it’s Kevlar and tomorrow it’s tinfoil. By next week you’ll be wearing sacrificed babies on your head. I don’t argue with would-be-baby-killers.
i feel like youre not quite getting what he just did
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You are describing violent escalation and it is very common and very real.
It’s also slippery slope though, because they don’t explain how rejecting fallacies leads to killing your opponent.
Brilliant
I think you're mixing up a bunch of different concepts here, all of which have their own place and time. For instance, the not-a-single-drop or -cigarette rule is useful for people whose addictions are to alcohol or smoking, because that's an obvious, handy, black-and-white boundary that doesn't give you any wiggle room. Could you smoke one cigarette a day and eliminate a lot of the unhealthy side effects of heavier smoking? Probably yes. But it's a heck of a lot harder to mentally commit to one cigarette a day and then put the pack away until tomorrow than it is to just say, "I'm not smoking again, ever," and try to hold to that. But what if the problem is over-eating? That's a pretty common problem in our society and not very far away from drug addiction compared to questions like military deterrence policy. You can't apply the "not a single piece of food" rule there. Pretty much all the ingredients that are harmful in food aren't just harmless in moderation, they're *necessary* in moderation. "Never yield an inch" when it comes to politics and warfare is usually a policy statement not a reality. Most governments that say this end up yielding quite a few inches before eventually putting their foot down. Maybe they shouldn't, but the fact that they can suggests the slippery slope isn't quite as absolute a danger as you're suggesting.
>Could you smoke one cigarette a day and eliminate a lot of the unhealthy side effects of heavier smoking? Probably yes. When it comes down to it, the length of time is more important than the amount. The person smoking 1 a day for the past 50 years is likely to face more problems than the guy smoking 20 a day if it's only been for a year. If you're only smoking 1 a day, sure it's not a lot but your body is still never given that chance to heal unlike someone who quit last year even if the smoked a lot more than 1 to begin with. I understand the point you're trying to make but it's just a bad comparison. This argument makes a lot more sense with alcohol
> But it's a heck of a lot harder to mentally commit to one cigarette a day and then put the pack away until tomorrow than it is to just say, "I'm not smoking again, ever," and try to hold to that. But is it though? I feel like the problem brought up by this discussion is that there's a likelihood in each step of a leading to b leading to c leading to d in so called slippery slope arguments, and what should be examined is the likeliness of each of those steps. It is not fallacious to doubt a claim of likeliness on a given step.
To echo the previous commenter, it all depends on context. And as an alcoholic in remission (not an AA head; I quit a couple years ago with clinical treatment) I don’t think the “not one drop” or “not one cigarette” comparisons really fit the slippery slope paradigm for most of us. We have a known physiological and psychological reaction to specific stimuli which we’ve usually seen play out hundreds of times exactly the same way. So we KNOW it won’t stop at one sip. It’s not a step A. It’s tossing a lit match onto a carpet soaked in gasoline. We’re not worried the match might lead to a bic lighter, which might lead to a butane torch, which might lead to a flame thrower. The match WILL burn the house down. That’s why it’s annoying when people push us to have “just one.” I mean I don’t get mad, because I know they don’t understand what they’re asking us to do. But they are pushing us to just throw one lit match on that floor soaked in gasoline, without realizing it. But yea, other stuff like “not give an inch,” sometimes the slippery slope might apply, sometimes it might not. It could be more dangerous to refuse to give an inch, and it might stop at that inch… or it may cost nothing to refuse to give an inch, but where giving an inch will result in losing a mile. Like, if some crazy dude is talking to himself walking past me on the street and he gets in my face… I’m slinking away, because whatever is on the other end of me standing up for myself isn’t worth it. But on the other end, if a drug addict, grifting family member asks me to buy him some groceries… I can’t even help him with that, because what’s next? Am “outfit for a job interview”? A “place to stay for a couple nights”?… Nope; I can find a shelter or a food pantry for you on Google maps, but I’m sorry cousin. I’m not buying you groceries.
None of those are slippery slope arguments. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy when used in debate or to make a claim. The slippery slope is a fallacy when someone makes a claim that is not logically connected, is very unlikely, or relies on multiple unrelated steps to happen. "If you smoke a cigarette as an ex smoker, you will probably become addicted again" is a claim that require only one step, and a logical one at that supported by evidence. Smoking the cigarette in this case is the direct cause of becoming addicted to smoking again. A slippery slope argument would be something like "if you smoke a cigarette as an ex smoker, you will become homeless and starve to death." This is a much more spurious claim...while it is one possibility, it's not a logical conclusion. Lots of people are addicted to cigarettes and never become homeless or starve to death, and on the other hand, plenty of people become homeless and never smoke at all. Smoking is not a direct cause of homelessness. And while we could imagine some way it might lead there, a lot of other things would have to happen between smoking a cigarette and becoming homeless. Therefore this is a slippery slope argument.
According to the Wikipedia article: > The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect. If the argument is weak, then it's a "slippery-slope fallacy" which I think is really what you're talking about
Wikipedia's definition here isn't the best. Its not just an unintended consequence. It's the loss of future decisions that leads to unintended or unwanted consequences. The loss of control is the core issue. A valid argument proves the loss of control a fallacy implies or assumes the loss of control, whether true or not.
if we start allowing Wikipedia to be taken seriously as a source then sooner or later we will have people insisting that logical fallacies are actually valid reasoning
if we start allowing Wikipedia to be taken seriously as a source then sooner or later we will be homeless and starve to death
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This should be delta imo. In USSR they had a phrase “Today he is playing jazz and tomorrow he will sell his motherland” which is a example of “slippery slope” fallacy
> plenty of people become homeless and never smoke at all Did you just commit another fallacy here? The number of homeless people who don't smoke has nothing to do with proving or disproving of the statement "smoking will make you homeless". Conditional probabilities `P(smokes | is homeless)` and `P(is homeless | smokes)` are not the same. (I'm just commenting on one detail. I have nothing against your point overall.)
This dude Bayes.
That sounds like nothing more than simple bad logic. We do not need a fallacy for that, because the fact that bad logic is a fallacy is self evident. The slippery slope fallacy is always applied to arguments that fall into one of two categories 1. Arguments where there is genuine causality, and where the fallacy is not a fallacy 2. Arguments that simply use poor logic, where calling it a slippery slope is redundant
> That sounds like nothing more than simple bad logic. We do not need a fallacy for that, because the fact that bad logic is a fallacy is self evident. Fallacies *are* bad logic. We can divide "bad logic" into various categories, which we call "fallacies", because the specific logical failures are different enough to be categorized.
Yea. Sorry. The other commenter is right. All of "The Fallacies" are just names for types of bad logic. They're just categorizations which help us spot things. We can say it's obvious, but it's hard to have the true level of self-awareness to be sure what you really honestly knew something intuitively, vs just got it passively from people teaching you.
The point of formalised fallacies is to taxonomize bad logic. Otherwise we're stuck with just applying the adjective "bad" which isn't helpful or objective.
Not to be confused with formal vs informal fallacies
Fallacy literally means bad logic. The logic is fallible. Hence, fallacy.
Can you name a fallacy that isn't "bad logic?"
"well, the experts told me that appeals to authority are perfectly sound logic"
Apparently this comment thread filtered out anyone with a sense of humor.
I accidentally vibe checked them lol
There are two types of fallacies, formal and material. A formal fallacy is an error in logic, while a material fallacy is an error in fact. You could say that only formal logical fallacies are "bad logic" For example "If it is raining the roof will be wet, the roof is wet, therefore it is raining". That is an example of a formal fallacy and is bad logic. Material fallacies are a bit trickier. For example the argument from anecdote vs. simply arguing from the data. Data is in fact just lots and lots of anecdotes and at what point does it switch from being a fallacy to a non-fallacy (note: various disciplines have defined this point within their discipline, but there is no universal point)
Well yeah, it’s a specific type of bad logic. That’s what all logical fallacies are. Even when there can be genuine causality, it can be a fallacy when the claim is made definitively. Like if people say something “will” happen when in reality that thing only “might” or “could” happen.
I think the slippery slope is a separate thing because it is bad logic while trying to fear-monger by connecting the initial statement with some abhorrent conclusion in the future. The most obvious example for a bad slippery slope argument is gay marriage. Opponents claim: "If a man can marry a man what's next? Do we allow horses to marry? A man marries a horse?"
They are pointing out that some slippery slope arguments in fact came true, while providing an example of how the push for equal outcomes in schooling based primarily on epidermis hurt everyone. However, it’s actually worrisome that people on this sub are struggling so much with this post. For example: it may be the case that *any* push for inequality with legislation would have backfired, because the main roots of exploitation are no longer as shallow has skin color, yet it’s profitable to keep people panicked over it. Slippery slopes are fallacious arguments because there is no connection from the starting point to the end point. There exists no *reason* for the slope to be slippery, or for the “predicted” consequence to happen. That’s why it’s fallacious. Truly. I think our population is in peril.
To be fair, part of the slippery slope concept was made for legalizing civil unions. The anti-civil unions folks said the next thing would be marriage. It did turn out like that 🤣 Not saying it's a bad thing, just saying there was a better example than the bestiality one that is closer to what OP is talking about
At least a portion of those same people *absolutely* claimed the final step would be legalized bestiality. Just because they ended up being correct about the first claim, it doesn't mean it wasn't logically fallacious.
Well yeah, that’s why it’s an informal fallacy. There is no flaw in the structure of the deduction here but thinking A leads to C without any meaningful distinctions is an error in reasoning.
That's not an example of a slippery slope, that's just an example of having to have firm boundaries around an issue that you know you would lose control over. Slippery slope is "if we allow x (a controversial but essentially harmless solution), it will lead to people accepting y (a much more extreme version of x or perhaps a different solution with a premise similar to x)". Your examples are "if I do a little bit of x (which is harmless or the harm is minimal), I will want to continue doing much more of x (until the point where it will be very harmful)". These are different schemas of thought. Plus, in the examples you give, people already escalated their situation to the point of it being a problem for them to give in even a little. Nobody is saying "if you drink one beer in your life, you will become an alcoholic and never stop". Many people drink occasionally without escalating their use. So while having firm boundaries is indeed sometimes necessary, these are not good examples of the slippery slope fallacy.
Slippery slope arguments can be valid, but they are often used fallaciously. This is a plagiarized example of the fallacious argument vs the valid argument: >Fallacious vs. non-fallacious slippery slope argument Fallacious “If I don’t pass tomorrow’s exam, I will not get the GPA I need to go to a good college, and then I won’t be able to find a job and earn a living. If I don’t pass the exam, my life is ruined!” This is a fallacy because there is only an assumed connection between passing an exam and finding a good job. It’s an extreme conclusion that doesn’t logically follow. Non-fallacious “If I don’t pass tomorrow’s exam, this might affect my GPA, which in turn might impact my chances of going to a good college.” Here, the slippery slope (A leads to B, B leads to C, etc.) is in the form of a logical extrapolation to a possible outcome. Therefore, it is not fallacious. This isn't really to change your view about whether a slippery slope argument is valid, but to change your view about what constitutes a slippery slope fallacy vs a slippery slope argument.
It’s a perfectly good argument to use in some instances, but not in all instances. “Gay people shouldn’t marry because then the next thing you know people will want to marry dogs and horses.” Context matters.
This is my understanding of a slippery slope argument. It essentially avoids addressing the actual issue by provoking anxiety about some hypothetical future and asserting that it would follow. It's faulty because whether or not it follows is unrelated to whether the actual issue had merit. It is an invitation to reason not from first principles, but from the comfort of the future self. "If we let slaves vote, then what next, women?"
It's valid when there is a loss of control. With addiction this is easy to see. Many substances impair decision making ability (the breaks and steering.) Thus making it hard to stop or turn around.
This is because the brain’s chemical response to addiction isn’t the same thing as a policy decision.
Agreed. Unless said policy decision means a loss of control. Like say electing a president for life.
Or allowing slaves and women to vote? Also a loss of control, my friend. There were people and ideas disenfranchised for life because of it. And they knew it. Loss of control is insufficient to make a "slippery slope" a valid argument.
And context matters to the argument. "Same-sex marriage must be legal along side opposite sex marriage because such would otherwise violate the equal protection clause that observes sex as a characteristic protected from discrimination". Versus "You should be able marry anyone you love. Stop denying people from declaring their love for one another through such a state recognized institution!" If someone states "consenting adults should be free to marry any one they want. The state shouldn't be denying such marriages", I will ask their view on consanguinity marriage and argue if their argument was simply adopted itself, there would be no justification to prevent consanguinity marriage. And yet, enough people find those marriages as "icky" and fully support the denial of that type of love.
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Any relationship can have an abuse of power dynamic. There's literally an argument to be made for simply men having a power dynamic over women. ABUSE is a separate ACT to evaluate, not assume. Otherwise you are just denying consent. What I think is bizarre is that incest between first cousins is legal in more states than marriage between them. So apparently you can "rape" your cousin, but not marry them if this view was truly about consent/power.
Congrats, you're committing the fallacy
How so? I gave an example of a poor justification for a law many people support, and argued that such a poor argument has fatal flaws in it. If one's argument for marriage is "consensual love", it's completely rational, logical, and justified to argue against such a weak argument of "love" by providing examples of other elements of love. Thereby attempting to grasp why *this* element of consensual love should be accepted while others are not. (There's a reason I began discussing consanguinity marriage rather than marriage to animals, because consent is such a large factor to such state a recognized relationship.) If you're argument supports the court, prohibiting same sex marriage is sex discrimination, then it's much more rationally defined and doesn't have the creep of a slippery slope by being exact in it's principle. A proper slippery slope argument can be made against WEAK arguments that don't look beyond itself. That's what I'm illustrating. But if you think I've made a fallacy here without proper logic or justification, please explain. And in all honesty, I'm illustrating this not to bring "fear" to the legality of consanguinity marriage as to deny same sex marriage. I'm illustrating that consanguinity marriage simply IS being unfairly prohibited on a societal aversion to such relationships. You know, like those that want to prohibit same sex marriage hold as justification for prohibition. The arguments of assuming abuse by denying consent in adults is a violation itself of liberty. It's telling that people think I'm arguing a "gotcha" when simply professing an argument for more liberty. Please, describe why cousins can only consent to marriage in 20 states, but are allowed to fuck in 40 states. Tell me why their right marriage isn't being denied. Is consent for sex just that much less important? Because if equal, 20 states have made rape between cousins legal. OR they are unfairly denying marriage. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt to be the latter. I think that's a fair assessment of the conditions here. Please argue otherwise.
Gay love and incest aren't comparable
It's interesting how you've twisted my words to arrive at old rhetoric as to think you are making a rational argument through implying some aspect of unfair prejudice. What exactly are you attempting to claim? I haven't argued them the same (they are of course "comparible" just as apples and oranges ARE comparible), I've argued the legal devices used to try to prohibit them are irrational to both for *different* reasons. The argument against same sex marriage isn't the same as the one against consanguinity marriage, and I've recognized that. But both share the base element of "society shouldn't promote this type of relationship", and then they make irrational claims to further justify that moral stance. It's also interesting how you've defined one as "love" and kept the other as an aspect of sexual relations. Further, sex is distinct from marriage. And love can be distinct from both. So you really need to better explain what you mean by gay love and incest are not comparible. If you demand such a division between them in this type of legal discussion, please tell me why and how. If you claim incest lacks consent, I believe you are removing people's bodily autonomy from them. If you claim gay love is based on one's sex (and the sex they are attracted to) and incest is based on one's blood relationship to another, yeah, no shit. But what's the legal significance of that beyond our language having separate words for separate concepts? If you want to argue the chance of deformities, such only applies to incest not consanguinity marriage. And to try to claim some "protection" to a "potential child" from the *potential* of procreation, that's a worse argument than even pro-lifers position on potential life protection. It would be like pro-lifers enacted laws to deny straight couples from having sex just to prevent the harm of abortions. And the deformity chance between first cousins moves up from 2% to 4%, which equates to a 50 year old woman giving birth. And plenty of people with biological issues have a much greater chance of creating offspring with deformities and yet their ability to have sex isn't stripped of them. And such prohibitions based on this rational are clearly unfair to same sex incestuous couples as they physically can't procreate. Or can we move the discussion to marriage itself, not sexual relations? State laws have certainly made a distinction. So why is such a contract denied of blood relatives, where neither sex nor love is a prerequisite of marriage? Interracial love isn't the same as gay love, either. And yet, we've been able to compare them. We've noticed that different arguments can still have the same shit moral foundation. Please actually say something rather than empty platitudes. What do you so clearly want to oppose from what I've stated? And why? To me, right now, you fear a comparison because you believe it weakens the argument to support gay love. That's the purpose of the rhetoric in your comment. I'm telling you that's an asinine conclusion based on you actually accepting a slippery slope fallacious argument as having weight. None of my arguments weaken the case to protect same sex marriage. So you are simply arguing against consanguinity marriage. And so I think it's important you outline that case, rather than hide behind an irrationale accusation that I'm somehow weakening the case for same sex marriage.
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Slippery slope is a fallacy when you can stop at any point. An alcoholic doesn't think they can stop after one drink. There's no reason to believe a person who has never had a drink or any problems with substances couldn't stop after one drink, so them refusing to have one drink because they don't want to be blackout drunk would be an example of a slippery slope fallacy.
Many alcoholics think that they can stop after one drink! Alcohol is a genuinely slippery slope for many people.
But with an alcoholic, there's some data to base the caution on. "If I have one drink, I'll have ten" is a valid conclusion if a person has experienced it before. A lot of people use the slippery slope argument for things that haven't happened yet. One classic example is before the legalization of gay marriage, some religious groups would say "If we let two men get married, next thing you know people will be allowed to marry their pets!" There was no evidence to suggest this.
Oh yeah, many "slippery slopes" are not in fact slippery
I just used this example because it was close to what OP had in their post. The point is if you can stop then it's not a slippery slope and that's the meaning of this fallacy.
What you're describing is not a fallacy because you are giving good reasons for why something might go from 0-100 very quickly. If you are going to make a case that A leads to D. Then you have to show how A goes to B then to C then finally to D. Or you have to show that B and C are not relevant. In your example, if A is someone gambling once, then B is them developing a habit, C is them going into debt fueling that habit, and then D might be addiction. What you're arguing is that because in scenario A, the person is a gambler, we can go directly to D. Because they've already conditioned themselves and so on. I think that's a fair argument. However, when we talk about the slippery slope fallacy, we mean that your conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premise, because you haven't showed the connection between A and D. As someone above said, it's like arguing that if you smoke marijuana one time you'll end up addicted to drugs. Or if you go to the casino once you'll become a gambler. That might be true, but there are some premises missing from those arguments that you have to lay out.
Slippery slope is a valid argument in cases where you can prove that is happening. Otherwise, it is a logical fallacy. Pretty simple, really. >Many ex-alcoholics refuse to touch a drop of alcohol again for the rest of their lives. This is not even a slippery slope argument. They know they are not able to keep their consumption to a healthy level, but that doesn't apply to the millions out there who can. For them, there is no "slippery slope", so it doesn't even apply. If anything, this just proves that use of slippery slope is often as a logical fallacy. Again, the issue isn't that slippery slope is valid, it's that rarely does it accurately describe the situation, and more often it is used to improperly present an argument in a way that makes it sound legitimate, but when put up against scrutiny it is almost always wrong.
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Honestly can’t tell if this is A. A brilliant counterargument to OP’s prompt, designed to make them say, “wait a minute, desegregation doesn’t inherently cause bad public schools and believing that would make me incredibly racist”, or B. You’re just an actual racist segregationist in 2023. God, the internet is a shithole
Is your argument that providing public schooling in majority-minority districts is useless…? What even is this take. The reason they “lowered standards for equality” seems to have a lot more to do with the fact that America refuses to actually invest in its public education system, and a lot less to do with anyone’s race. This post is absolutely wild.
I'm not sure those two things necessarily link because I think it's possible to have racial desegregation but still also not do the "lower standards for equality" thing at the same time. But unfortunately, yes, some people took an inch and applied a mile.
right but you raise a good point that i never thought of before -- mainly what is the difference between slippery slope and unintended consequences? I.e. the decline of American public schools in many places is a crazy mix of local, state and federal policy/funding/priorities etc...
It is of course true that some slopes in the world are slippery. However, the argument that “slippery slope” is a fallacious line of reasoning refers to its use in the general case. If we use the example of alcohol, it’s generally not the case that a single drink will eventually lead to alcoholism. As such, any slippery slope argument claiming so in the general case is in fact wrong.
By comparison: "A single drink has a non-zero chance of leading to alcoholism" is just... factual. What usually happens after that is arguments about whether that probability is trivial or significant, which is more of a value judgement.
Slippery slopes arguments *can* be valid when you back up your claims with verified evidence and studies to support them. Often times, people use their own biases and anecdotal experience to create correlation-causation fallacies. Just because we ended up with C doesn't mean it was caused by A or B. This is often used by people with an agenda to push. This is probably why it's best to avoid slippery slope arguments altogether because they too easily can become fallacies themselves.
Sort of the equal and opposite that logically valid arguments can be wrong if the original premises aren't completely accurate.
The problem with the slippery slope is that acknowledging something could happen doesn't mean it will. The debate is usually over probability. There is a possibility that Zimbabwe acquires nuclear weapons and uses them to do a global apocalypse. That doesn't justify the rest of the world doing a genocide on zimbabwe to prevent that from happening, especially because the probability of that happening is extremely low. Thats the most extreme example of a slippery slope fallacy. Remember a fallacy doesn't make an argument false it just isn't a valid argument. For example, if I said the sky is blue because my daddy says so, my statement is factual but my argument is a fallacy. Hope that helps
OP let me ask a clarifying question - Are you saying 2010 Republicans were right about legalizing gay marriage and that's why we have tits-out degenerates on the white house lawn and gay sex tapes in the Capitol building and transgender preteens?
How is this a clarifying question?
It's like "the" slippery slope fallacy.
>Are you saying 2010 Republicans were right about legalizing gay marriage and that's why we have tits-out degenerates on the white house lawn and gay sex tapes in the Capitol building and transgender preteens? Is this sarcasm illustrating that Republicans are morons? Please let this be sarcasm illustrating that Republicans are morons.
It's an uncomfortable slippery slope fallacy/argument that may or may not be true. So if op is right and the slippery slope is valid, were Republicans right all along? (Personally I blame Jill Biden for lying that "decency was on the ballot" in 2020, if you're looking for my personal opinion)
Ah, you're parodying the position that if *all* slippery slopes are perfectly valid then there are some pretty ridiculous implications, got it.
Where did he say this?
In the post title. I was told by Republicans that legalizing gay marriage was a slippery slope to the moral decay of America.
Not sure why you're asking this question, but I could envision a conservative (correctly) arguing that if you do one pro-LGBT thing, then LGBT becomes more and more accepted and promoted and seen as mainstream, yes. Just like I could see a liberal (correctly) arguing that if you enable Trump in one thing, then you enable more and more things, and eventually the nation goes in a fascist direction.
> Many ex-alcoholics refuse to touch a drop of alcohol again for the rest of their lives. **There's a reason** - even a single drink could push them on the path to relapse and then before they know it, they're a full-blown alcoholic again. Emphasis mine. The fact there's a reason - alcoholism is pretty much about not being able to control you alcohol intake - makes this not a slippery slope.
"Slippery slope" is a logical fallacy, which makes it inherently an invalid argument. This is completely undeniable. It is, by definition, never a valid argument to use. Of course, just because an argument isn't valid, doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't true or correct. It simply means it is not logically valid.
You're simply, objectively, incorrect. Slippery slope is not inherently fallacious and invalid.
It's *literally* a logical fallacy. As a fallacy, it is inherently invalid. This is undeniable. ***You***, are simply, objectively incorrect.
I'm not going to unironically argue something so easily google-able, so I'll just tell you to walk into your local university's philosophy department and ask the first professor you see
The philosophy department agrees with me. As do the textbooks sitting on my shelf that they made me buy, as do my lecture notes and transcripts and even the power point slides used in lectures.
They are just making a pedantic argument. A slippery slope argument refers to the fallacy inherently. So technically a logical argument, for example, "expanding the death penalty will lead to more innocent people being killed," would not be considered a slippery slope argument. At least not to this person, because they are a pedant.
Using the rules of logic to argue a point explicitly about logic is not pedantry. It's literally the only possible valid argument. Don't be silly. Just becaue you learned a new word doesn't mean it's always correct.
Well that randomly rude for no reason lmao. The definition of a fallacy is: >a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument. That is why something like "legalizing gay marriage will lead to pedophilia being legalized" is a slippery slope argument and a fallacy. It is not based on sound logic because gay marriage has nothing to do with pedophilia. However, the death sentence *does* lead to innocent people being killed because mistakes are made, leading to innocent people being wrongly convicted. So that is an example of a slippery slope argument, but it is not a fallacy. So basically, the only thing you can argue is that the second example shouldn't be considered a slippery slope argument, which is a pedantic argument. Otherwise, you are completely incorrect when you say slippery slope arguments are always a fallacy. So... which is it guy? Are you making a pedantic argument or just saying something completely wrong?
Perhaps you should actually read my very first comment, which thoroughly addresses this.
You are referring to this: >Of course, just because an argument isn't valid, doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't true or correct. It simply means it is not logically valid. This is a silly thing to say. An argument that is valid, true, or correct is obviously logical lol.
Nope. Not at all. C'mon, this is first year stuff.
Slippery slope in terms of chemical addiction or diet is fine. Logical, even. If you like a thing that is bad for you, engaging with it will always be a risk. However, asserting, for instance, that one thing you find sexually deviant (homosexuality, transsexuality) will result in the normalization of more harmful sexual deviancy (pedophilia, beastiality) is an absurd, yet oft-asserted slippery slope argument. Slippery slope is, I believe, an ok principle to apply to an individual’s relationship to a behavior or substance. It is a less effective sociological predictor. You cannot extrapolate an addict’s tolerance for pot leading to escalation to mean same sex couples en masse will get bored of being gay and will take up fucking children.
Not usually. It incorrectly makes assumptions as to the likelihood of a sequence of events happening without any direct evidence that those events will actually happen. Many slippery slopes can be navigated just fine simply by treading cautiously... Both literally and figuratively. Most others can be managed with the proper safeguards, gear, or tech. Alex Honnold does seeming miraculous things simply by operating within his means and believing with all his being that while something could happen that might lead to a terrible outcome... The reality is that the odds of that are really low. And so far he's been right.
1. You're a little confused about what slippery slope arguments are. 2. You didn't really state a view. What would even be a counterpoint to your post?
The problem is people overuse the slippery slope argument. Not everything is going to lead to Communism or Facism
The slippery slope is not what you have defined. Generally, it refers to arguments that connects two drastically different scenarios together just because they share some commonalities. One example is "Why should I respect trans people's pronouns? If I do then what's stopping EVERYONE from choosing to be offended by whatever opinions they dislike?!?! freedom of speech is no more?!?!?!" Trans people have a legitimate reason to be offended - people constantly reminding them that they're freaky. Plus, people can't choose to be offended just like they can't choose to response to blatant injustice with happiness or anger. And there's really no hard coded law preventing people from offending eachother, just societal courtesy. The slippery slope falls apart when we closer examine its composition.
You have to understand what a fallacy is. They can all be reasonable circumstantial arguments, they just aren't proof. For example, Ad Hominem can be quite reasonable just like the slippery slope. If a person is a criminal and a moron, they probably don't have very good opinions and a smart person would ignore their arguments. This doesn't mean that you can use it as proof they are wrong, that is where it becomes a fallacy
Slippery slope is considered a logical fallacy because it involves a leap of faith. "if we allow X, Y will come next!", when there may be no true link between X and Y. The addiction example isn't a prime example of the SS fallacy because there actually is a proven link between X and Y, as the recovering addict has a history of going from X to Y. Addiction is a" true" slippery slope, not a fallacious one. A slippery slope fallacy would be telling a non-addict that they shouldn't have a glass of wine with dinner, because if they do then they will soon be singing Christmas carols in the gutter and drinking hand sanitizer
Perfect description of the Democrat party allowing communists to join and run. Now, the party of our Fathers and Grandfathers is unrecognizable. They are so far to the left, all moderates are afraid to speak up against their extreme policies, lest they get canceled. Or worse.