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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The "Slippery Slope" argument
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
You get it in all walks of life, from sexual morals to refereeing technology in sport.
However, despite its common use, I've never found the slippery slope argument at all persuasive. The "what next!!!???" tactic just seems to deflect from a genuine debate.
To invoke the slippery slope unfairly assumes that subsequent generations will be unable to navigate future moral issues on their own merits. It often conflates one topical issue with a non-equivalent but vaguely similar issue. It just comes across as unhelpful sensationalism.
Am I the only one that thinks this?
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
"Slippery slope" is given as a logical fallacy in many, possibly most, books on informal logic. Its main use is as a scare tactic to suppress something the speaker wants suppressed. Such as the rights of LGBTQ folks.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
Ah, having never read any books on informal logic, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks MT.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Ah, it is all settled then. We will never hear the tactic again, now that we know its meaning.
[ 30. April 2014, 15:11: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
The article on RationalWiki serves as a fairly good introduction.
It seems that it is often built on past experience and anticipating a repeating pattern in the future. It is in this anticipation that the logical flaw lies, as it is built on an assumption that history repeats itself.
An example of this can be seen with how one uses "First they came". As a retrospective, it is a powerful argument. But if used as a forward-looking prophetic statement, the inevitability of the feared consequence is often overstated.
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Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
I'm fairly sure most of us will be able to think of areas of compromise in our own lives where a stronger stance early on would have avoided pain in the future.
The same goes for certain episodes of world history, (or so I was taught in secondary school.)
I think declaring a certain stance on an argument to be a logical fallacy could in itself be a fallacy if it apparently gives the listener a free pass from having to consider the other side's point. "Well that's just bulverism, and therefore your argument is dismissed out of hand."
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
I think it depends on the argument being made.
Let's take legalization of marijuana. One could make different cases for it:
1) Marijuana should be legal because scientific studies show it to be less harmful than alcohol and less addictive than nicotine. The cost of enforcing the laws against it is greater than its actual cost to society.
2) Marijuana should be legal because adults should be free to choose which intoxicants and narcotics they want to use, the government has no right to prevent individuals from making this choice.
1) would not lead to a slippery slope, 2) would open arguments for the legalization of all drugs regardless of their impact on health, crime rates, etc.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
Political theorists sometimes talk about the "Overton Window" - the idea that a fairly narrow range of opinions are acceptable, but that one can shift the window over time (broadly speaking, the window adjusts to that the medium-term status quo becomes the middle.)
In this sense, the slippery slope is real. It remains a logical fallacy, of course, but it's not completely without foundation.
Not that this excuses the kind of "children are going to be marrying dogs next" hysteria.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
When abolishing slavery was being discussed in the US, there was a "slippery slope" argument over whether it would lead to allowing blacks to vote, allowing blacks to work in the same professions as whites, allowing blacks and whites to work, study, and socialize together, and (the greatest fear among many), allowing interracial marriage. Desegregation was opposed over a hundred years later by those who feared that it would lead to interracial marriage. The reason that the slippery slope argument is popular among conservatives who oppose same sex marriage is that a lot of the slippery slope fears of opponents of change in the past have been realized.
That's why my response to slippery slope arguments about same sex marriage is that laws about social issues have to be based on rational, secular arguments. No law supporting racial discrimination or segregation could stand up in the court of public opinion once people stopped accepting arbitrary privileges and supposed bases in revelation as valid reasons to enact such laws (affirmative action is another thing and a topic for another thread). The same with same sex marriage.
Ending slavery and segregation involved redefining (and in some way deconstructing) the idea of race (we still have racism, but not in the legal, institutional way that we used to). Legalizing same sex marriage involves redefining marriage (which our society has done before, by the way). Legalizing incest or bestiality would involve redefining blood relations, human exceptionalism, consent, etc. Is there any valid, rational, secular reason for redefining these things? I think that there definitely is for same sex marriage, and there definitely is not for incest and bestiality. Traditionalists are terrified of having to engage in these arguments. They think that there are some places where reason should not be allowed to go.
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
I think declaring a certain stance on an argument to be a logical fallacy could in itself be a fallacy if it apparently gives the listener a free pass from having to consider the other side's point. "Well that's just bulverism, and therefore your argument is dismissed out of hand."
At the very least, simply identifying a counter argument as a logical fallacy is lazy argumentation. Lists of logical fallacies are useful in anticipating counter arguments, but saying "you're making a slippery slope argument" isn't persuasive. A reasonably intelligent person should be able to identify why the justification for x does not leave room for y and z, or be able to show that y and z are not bad things.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
"Slippery Slope" is a logical fallacy if applied without critical pre-appraisal. After all, things change all the time without opening the floodgates to all other sorts of dereliction.
On the other hand, there really are circumstances that lead to slippery slopes. For example if the resistance to the first action in a chain is higher than to other subsequent actions, then a cascade effect can easily occur. It's a common safety engineering problem.
In a rational world, one would examine such things dispassionately, to determine if any action may have such unforeseen consequences. You could then decide what needs doing to ensure they can't happen. It's not a rational world of course, so you regularly get claims of slippery slopes, likewise countered by assertions that no such thing could happen. Both are wrong in their own ways.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Yam-pk
Shipmate
# 12791
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Posted
Hmm, I find the "slippery slope" argument most persuasive regarding euthanasia.
Once you grant people the right to end their lives because they have a terminal illness, society will accept that the right to die exists for some people, pressure will then build for people who don't necessarily have a terminal illness but whose quality of life is awful, then people with depression, etc.
It seems that once the principle is established, it would lead inexorably to further moral questions, and thus the slippery slope is born ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
I'd be interested to know why people would this argument doesn't apply here.
[ 30. April 2014, 17:18: Message edited by: Yam-pk ]
Posts: 472 | From: The Grim North | Registered: Jul 2007
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yam-pk:
Hmm, I find the "slippery slope" argument most persuasive regarding euthanasia.
Once you grant people the right to end their lives because they have a terminal illness, society will accept that the right to die exists for some people, pressure will then build for people who don't necessarily have a terminal illness but whose quality of life is awful, then people with depression, etc.
It may apply, then what do you do if we reach a stage where an absolute majority believe that those with terminal illnesses have a right to die? How small a minority are allowed a veto the majority?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yam-pk:
Hmm, I find the "slippery slope" argument most persuasive regarding euthanasia.
Once you grant people the right to end their lives because they have a terminal illness, society will accept that the right to die exists for some people, pressure will then build for people who don't necessarily have a terminal illness but whose quality of life is awful, then people with depression, etc.
It seems that once the principle is established, it would lead inexorably to further moral questions, and thus the slippery slope is born
I'd be interested to know why people would this argument doesn't apply here.
I think the slippery slope might go as far as chronic illness, but not as far as depression - seeing as how pretty much every version of assisted suicide I've ever seen includes "being of sound mind" as one of the criteria. Somebody depressed enough to be suicidal is demonstrably not of sound mind.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yam-pk:
Hmm, I find the "slippery slope" argument most persuasive regarding euthanasia.
More persuasive re- abortion. David Steel's bill in 1967 envisaged extreme circumstances in which the mother or baby's life and health was at risk.
I have heard it argued that the term 'health' has been stretched to allow abortion on demand. If you can argue that a mother would be depressed, then you have a case for abortion.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
I'm fairly sure most of us will be able to think of areas of compromise in our own lives where a stronger stance early on would have avoided pain in the future.
The same goes for certain episodes of world history, (or so I was taught in secondary school.)
I think declaring a certain stance on an argument to be a logical fallacy could in itself be a fallacy if it apparently gives the listener a free pass from having to consider the other side's point. "Well that's just bulverism, and therefore your argument is dismissed out of hand."
But slippery slope arguments are not just "history repeating itself". There is a certain logic to that-- even if future outcomes are not bound to past ones, the past is the best predictor of the future.
But slippery slope isn't relying on past outcomes. Slippery slope is simply projecting a long stream of unproven cause-and-effect relationships. One of the best (done for humor) is the children's book series,
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...
The inherent flaw is not using the past as a predictor of the future, but rather the speculative cause-and-effect relationships. Most causal arguments are flawed-- prone to correlation error, etc. A slippery slope argument is just a causal argument on steroids.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by Yam-pk:
Hmm, I find the "slippery slope" argument most persuasive regarding euthanasia.
Once you grant people the right to end their lives because they have a terminal illness, society will accept that the right to die exists for some people, pressure will then build for people who don't necessarily have a terminal illness but whose quality of life is awful, then people with depression, etc.
It may apply, then what do you do if we reach a stage where an absolute majority believe that those with terminal illnesses have a right to die? How small a minority are allowed a veto the majority?
That is a question of governance rather than logic or persuasion. In government, we have agreed that certain majorities get their way. From a logician's perspective, the majority can be wrong- it is a logical fallacy to argue that x must be true because a majority of people believe x to be true.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
I think it's helpful to distinguish between argument ad absurdum, which is a valid argument, and slippery slope, which is a fallacy. In my experience, people often confuse the two.
In AAA, you show that someone's argument, if applied consistently, will lead to absurd results that he could not possibly support.
A: We should make homosexuality illegal. That's what the Bible says, so that's good enough for me!!
B: I see. So you also favour outlawing shellfish, and having the death penalty for fortune-telling?
A: Uhh, well, no, uhh, hm.
Person B scored an effective point agaist Person A, because the Bible actually does call for the outlawing of shellfish and the death penalty for witchcraft. So, if Person A really does believe in his original principle of biblical authority, he should support those things as well. Or, he needs to go back and reconsider his original premise.
In slippery-slope, however, it is alleged that one opinion neccessarily entails another, when in fact there is no logical connection between the two.
A: We should outlaw homosexuality, because sex is for purposes of human reproduction only.
B: Yeah, you bible-thumpers. Next you're gonna wanna outlaw short-skirts and low-riding jeans.
This is slippery-slope, because there is no logical reason why the belief that only reproductive sex should be allowed needs to lead to the banning of short-skirts and low-rider jeans. Since those are not forms of sex.
It WOULD be a valid ad absurdum to reply: "Well, okay, but then you also have to outlaw contraceptives, masturbation, oral sex, and sex where one or both of the parties are infertile. Is that really what you want to do?
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
I think declaring a certain stance on an argument to be a logical fallacy could in itself be a fallacy if it apparently gives the listener a free pass from having to consider the other side's point. "Well that's just bulverism, and therefore your argument is dismissed out of hand."
If it's bulverism, there IS no argument. That's the point of logical fallacies. They're not an argument; they're fallacious. If you want to argue with me and have me take you seriously, your chain of reason can't have a fallacious step. Otherwise anything after that is, by definition, unsupported.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If you want to argue with me and have me take you seriously
I know it's on my bucket list...
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
your chain of reason can't have a fallacious step. Otherwise anything after that is, by definition, unsupported.
I think you may be running a little close to committing you own logical fallacy here, argument from fallacy. The conclusion may be unsupported by the presented argument, but there may nonetheless be support for the conclusion.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If you want to argue with me and have me take you seriously
I know it's on my bucket list...
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
your chain of reason can't have a fallacious step. Otherwise anything after that is, by definition, unsupported.
I think you may be running a little close to committing you own logical fallacy here, argument from fallacy. The conclusion may be unsupported by the presented argument, but there may nonetheless be support for the conclusion.
In which case, the person defending the conclusion needs to trot it out and not depend on fallacious arguments.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Yam-pk
Shipmate
# 12791
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Posted
If we're looking at historical precedents, then I suppose we could apply the same to euthanasia.
Under the terms of the original 1967 UK Abortion Act has been progressively interpreted more liberally by the courts and government as society has changed, therefore in light of this evidence, it is likely that a future Right-to-Die Act would be treated in the same way by the govt/courts. Doesn't seem to be a fallacy, more that it's informed by actual legal and historical precedent.
![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
[ 30. April 2014, 19:52: Message edited by: Yam-pk ]
Posts: 472 | From: The Grim North | Registered: Jul 2007
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
(pssst, Yam-pk)
Slippery slope arguments are tricky - a claim that enacting A is an inevitable slippery slope to Z is by itself (usually) fallacious. Not necessarily so, as genuine slippery slopes do exist.
They frequently show up in legal discussions. Bear in mind that implementation of the law relies strongly on precedent. So if you want to move from A to B and not beyond, you have to establish that the mechanism protecting you going beyond B has nothing to do with what is stopping you getting to B. If it does, you immediately have a potential slippery slope mechanism.
The curious might like to look at this paper which examines a number of mechanisms by which real slippery slopes may occur.
I suppose it should go without saying that to claim any slippery slope argument is automatically a fallacy is itself a logical fallacy.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
I'm not clear how a "slippery slope argument" (as a generality) could be symbolised in order to show that it was (or wasn't) a logical fallacy?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
They frequently show up in legal discussions. Bear in mind that implementation of the law relies strongly on precedent. So if you want to move from A to B and not beyond, you have to establish that the mechanism protecting you going beyond B has nothing to do with what is stopping you getting to B. If it does, you immediately have a potential slippery slope mechanism.
With the result that if you prefer B to A, but really really hate C, you might actually be better off campaigning to stay on A, unless you're really really sure that there's a solid barrier between B and C.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
I'm not clear how a "slippery slope argument" (as a generality) could be symbolised in order to show that it was (or wasn't) a logical fallacy?
I don't think it can, because it is a form of informal logical fallacy rather than formal logical fallacy. A formal logical fallacy involves a conclusion that does not follow from two or more premises which you are accepting as true. There is no argument with the premises, just with the soundness of the conclusion. You can diagram that fairly easily.
So if we accept that all x's are y's, and that z is a y, it would be a formal fallacy to conclude that z is an x.
An informal fallacy is a different beast- you are quibbling with one or more of the premises from which someone comes to a conclusion.
So suppose that I posit that everyone knows that all x's are y's, so this x must be a y. If you want to argue that not everyone agrees that all x's are y's, so therefor my conclusion about this x is flawed, you are saying that my argument is based on an informal fallacy. The argument is with the premise, not the soundness of the conclusion.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
At one point of exasperation not long ago, I informed the other Leaf that I was going to alter the keyboard, so that every time someone wrote "slippery slope" I would only have to press one altered key to respond with "moral panic".
They are mirror images of each other, "slippery slope" and "moral panic", and I find that neither actually contributes much to a debate. They obscure different assessments of risk. What looks to you like an imminent moral danger looks to me like ridiculous scaremongering, and vice versa.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That's the point of logical fallacies. They're not an argument; they're fallacious. If you want to argue with me and have me take you seriously, your chain of reason can't have a fallacious step. Otherwise anything after that is, by definition, unsupported.
This is not true. Consider the argument:
Every human being so far has died before the age of one hundred and fifty;
Threfore, you and I will die before the age of one hundred and fifty.
Logically that is a fallacy. The conclusion is not entailed by the premises. Nevertheless, I wouldn't advise making any decisions on the basis that the conclusion might be false.
Induction is a type of argument widely accepted that is logically invalid. There are a lot of logical fallacies that are nevertheless useful as part of balance of probability arguments. It is sadly the case that logic can only take us so far: it can tell us that contradictory beliefs must be false, but it's much less helpful in telling us which consistent set of belief is true. One has to use arguments that go beyond strict logic. The problem isn't so much that these formally fallacious arguments can't bear any weight - it's that sometimes because they can bear some weight people try to put more weight on them than they can bear.
Statistics is largely about formalising how much weight to put on these kinds of arguments.
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Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
I think declaring a certain stance on an argument to be a logical fallacy could in itself be a fallacy if it apparently gives the listener a free pass from having to consider the other side's point. "Well that's just bulverism, and therefore your argument is dismissed out of hand."
If it's bulverism, there IS no argument. That's the point of logical fallacies. They're not an argument; they're fallacious. If you want to argue with me and have me take you seriously, your chain of reason can't have a fallacious step. Otherwise anything after that is, by definition, unsupported.
I may be wrong, but I thought Trin's point was more that there can be a tendency to levy the charge of bulverism as a device to shut down the argument, when there isn't actually any bulverism involved. The hope on the part of the accuser is that the opponent will back away quietly, when the response should be "Bulverism? Prove it. In fact do you even know what it means?"
Bulverism is rather a minor example. Much more common is levying the charge that something is a strawman. The guilty person isn't the one accused of raising the strawman (because there isn't one), but the one who makes the false accusation with the intent of shutting down argument.
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Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Gerasu and Dafyd, you are both confusing formal logic with informal logic. Virtually nothing except Euclid's geometry proceeds by strict formal logic. Certainly not arguments in politics. That doesn't mean there aren't fallacious and non-fallacious ways of arguing, from the POV of informal logic.
The problem with your argument, Dafyd, has to do with predicting the future to be like the past. "Every x we have thus far observed has been y, therefore every x in the future will be y." But your point about making decisions based on the fact that this argument is a fallacy is bizarre. Who makes decisions based on the fact that an argument against something is fallacious? This is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thinking applied to (il)logic. And needless to say in making the kind of decision you are referring to, people would be looking at a lot of things, including why people have all died before the age of 150, and whether or not those reasons have been ameliorated for us today, or can expect to be ameliorated before we reach typical dying age. None of which has anything to do with proving an argument fallacious. In short, you have erected a straw man. Nobody in their right mind makes decisions on the basis you are mocking.
Pre-cambrian, I take your point. There is certainly a difference with detecting and pointing out a logical flaw, and pretending one exists where it does not. I think, much as I hate to say it, the name of the fallacy when someone cries "bulverism!" where there is no bulverism -- is straw man.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Stetson has hit upon more or less what I want to say (and so has Honest Ron Bacardi I think), although I'd like to say it in a different way.
The problem with most slippery slopes is that they pluck possible future consequences out of the air without wanting to engage with the reasoning behind the current outcome.
There are indeed cases where logically following through on a principle/basis for a decision would lead to other 'undesirable' results in the future, and it's legitimate to say this. But most of the time, a decision isn't based on one single consideration, it's multi-factorial, and those other factors would prevent going any further down the alleged 'slope'.
Seeing that LGBT right have already been used as an example, I might as well illustrate my point with the classic chestnut that further acceptance of homosexuality will lead to further acceptance of bestiality and/or pedophilia. The obvious riposte to this, which I've seen any number of times on the Ship and elsewhere, is that neither bestiality nor pedophilia is based on mutual consent, and that mutual consent is a feature that adult homosexual relationships share with adult heterosexual relationships. Understanding that basis negates the spectre of the slippery slope.
[ 01. May 2014, 03:49: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
Orfeo, true, but don't you think that, rather than bestiality / paedophilia, one could argue that polyamoryous marriage could be the next step on the 'slope'?
I don't actually have a problem with that, if it is. I think that society is perfectly capable of thinking through that and deciding what to do about it (and I suspect it's the practical concerns of how society is structured that are the main barrier, rather than ethical problems). But I can see that slippery slope argument, even though I think it's weak.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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lapsed heathen
Hurler on the ditch
# 4403
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Posted
Intention is the key. Slippery slope infers a lack of intention and that the next slide down the slope is inevitable because that's the nature of things.
I prefer the 'Thin end of the Wedge', it implies that the bottom of the slope was the original desired end and this move is just a way to force the issue open.
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"We are the Easter people and our song is Alleluia"
Posts: 1361 | From: Marble county | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The obvious riposte to this, which I've seen any number of times on the Ship and elsewhere, is that neither bestiality nor pedophilia is based on mutual consent, and that mutual consent is a feature that adult homosexual relationships share with adult heterosexual relationships. Understanding that basis negates the spectre of the slippery slope. [/QB]
At the risk of bad devils advocating, is there an element where consent is recognized or not depending on the view of the action.
Consider the not long ago case of underage pupil who ran away to France with her teacher. If it had been considered acceptable behavior for the teacher (or indeed if she'd been a bit older) it would have been considered consensual, as it was we have (quite rightly) words like grooming.
Similarly looking at 19th C language you have (wrongly, at least depending on the full story) 'ruining' and the like.
So while I think the difference is there, I'm not sure it's sufficient without care.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If it's bulverism, there IS no argument. That's the point of logical fallacies. They're not an argument; they're fallacious. If you want to argue with me and have me take you seriously, your chain of reason can't have a fallacious step. Otherwise anything after that is, by definition, unsupported.
You seem to be endorsing a very binary attitude.
"I don't think we should allow x because it could lead to y." - Is this a slippery slope argument? Yes. Should we therefore identify it as such and dismiss it out of hand? Not necessarily.
"x person thinks y because they have had disproportionate experience of y being true." - Is this bulverism? Yes. Does that mean it is absolutely never worthy of consideration? Not necessarily.
The above illustrate my dubiousness with those who lie in wait with a book on logical fallacies in their lap waiting to see which ones they can accuse there opponents of.
Yes, the identified logical fallacies have their use, but I think there can sometimes be a baby/bathwater situation. In some cases, deliberate.
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
there
Cringe.
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Orfeo, true, but don't you think that, rather than bestiality / paedophilia, one could argue that polyamoryous marriage could be the next step on the 'slope'?
I don't actually have a problem with that, if it is. I think that society is perfectly capable of thinking through that and deciding what to do about it (and I suspect it's the practical concerns of how society is structured that are the main barrier, rather than ethical problems). But I can see that slippery slope argument, even though I think it's weak.
I agree that polyamorous marriage is a far more logical progression. I also agree that any discussion about that is probably going to be about the practicalities ('we don't think it will work well in most cases') rather than the morality ('even an ideal polyamorous marriage is intrinsically wrong').
My experience, though, is it's actually pretty rare for public figures to say 'same-sex marriage could lead to polyamorous marriage'. The rhetoric is more often as I described previously.
And I think that's precisely because a slippery slope is usually intended to evoke an emotional, fear response in the listener, not lead to a principled consideration. Warning people about the slippery slope is designed to make people think "oh no, we don't want to go there". You don't generate an effective slippery slope by making people think "well, I wouldn't do that personally, but if other people wanted to I wouldn't actively stop them".
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The obvious riposte to this, which I've seen any number of times on the Ship and elsewhere, is that neither bestiality nor pedophilia is based on mutual consent, and that mutual consent is a feature that adult homosexual relationships share with adult heterosexual relationships. Understanding that basis negates the spectre of the slippery slope.
At the risk of bad devils advocating, is there an element where consent is recognized or not depending on the view of the action.
Consider the not long ago case of underage pupil who ran away to France with her teacher. If it had been considered acceptable behavior for the teacher (or indeed if she'd been a bit older) it would have been considered consensual, as it was we have (quite rightly) words like grooming.
Similarly looking at 19th C language you have (wrongly, at least depending on the full story) 'ruining' and the like.
So while I think the difference is there, I'm not sure it's sufficient without care. [/QB]
The question of who the law believes has capacity is a whole other can of worms. The rules around that are different in different countries and for different topics (sex, drinking age, driving age, voting age) so when it comes to reaching a magic age where suddenly you're allowed to make your own decisions, it's inevitably going to be a bit arbitrary and not take into consideration the individual case.
Rules are like that.
These days, though, such rules are usually genderless. And if we still had a system of marriage where the roles of males and females were in some way fundamentally different, there'd be some kind of principled logic to saying that same-sex marriage couldn't be on the same basis as heterosexual marriage. Thanks to the emancipation of women, we don't have that gendered role division.
We still do, though, have quite a large body of rules and societal norms that says age matters to your capacity to make decisions. In which case there is still a basic logic to saying that one's sexual partner is one of those rather important decisions where you need to be a certain age.
We are all quite comfortable with a certain level of what might be called 'age discrimination' because there's a general consensus that age IS a relevant factor for a lot of things. It doesn't hurt that age is not a permanent discriminator - in marked contrast to sex, race and (dare I say it) sexuality discrimination.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
Is the slippery slope like the thin end of the wedge or like the dangerous precedent? Those are arguments which boil down to saying "if we do the right thing now, we might be forced to do the right thing in the future." -[REF]
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
The above illustrate my dubiousness with those who lie in wait with a book on logical fallacies in their lap waiting to see which ones they can accuse there opponents of.
Do you believe anybody really does this? As I said above, if people have a good reason to think that thing A will lead to thing B, then they need to put forth that reason, and not just wail, "No, if we allow dogs in the park without a leash, next thing we'll have people walking alligators and ferrets without a leash, with a devastating impact on the ecosystem!" If a person thinks there is an obvious, demonstrable connection between two things, it is incumbent upon them to say what it is; their interlocutors shouldn't have to coax it out of them like a shy puppy from under the refrigerator.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Virtually nothing except Euclid's geometry proceeds by strict formal logic. Certainly not arguments in politics. That doesn't mean there aren't fallacious and non-fallacious ways of arguing, from the POV of informal logic.
You'll need to define informal logic here. The thing is that in any sense I can give it a lot of the classical 'fallacies' are not fallacies in informal logic.
For instance, most arguments against intelligent design go 'this is just a cover for creationism put forward by the usual suspects - move along nothing to see.' That is strictly speaking an argument ad hominem. We're dismissing their argument not upon its own merits but because the speaker has form in putting forward arguments with no merit. I submit that for those of us who aren't professionally involved in countering ID it's perfectly alright to dismiss an argument in that way.
Slippery slope arguments are not entirely invalid. As Learning Cniht one could probably rephrase most of them as claims that the proposed reform will move the Overton window. The correct response is not 'that's a slippery slope argument therefore it's not an argument at all', but either 'it won't move the Overton window unacceptably' or else 'it wouldn't be a problem if it did move it that way'.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
The above illustrate my dubiousness with those who lie in wait with a book on logical fallacies in their lap waiting to see which ones they can accuse there opponents of.
Do you believe anybody really does this?
No, I've gone over the top, though I'm sure being able to smugly cite the precise logical fallacy ones opponent has just comitted is half the fun of learning them in the first place. Irrelevant though.
I will return to my original point which was that I do not think we ought to rush to write off all "slippery slope" type arguments as groundless, simply because the slippery slope has been identified as a logical fallacy. To my mind, this is the danger of "logical fallacy" rhetoric. It allows for the easy pigeonholing of an idea in to the "ignore" category.
The slippery slope metaphor exists because in the real world one-bad-thing-paving-the-way-for-something-worse is an observable phenomenon.
Therefore, identified fallacy or otherwise, there is a place for the slippery slope in debate.
X will lead to Y is generally going to be impossible to prove now, even if it later comes to pass.
The idea that X might lead to Y may well turn out to be a very good point, and should not be ignored.
Some Xs and some Ys will of course be absurd, like gay marriage and bestiality.
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Orfeo, true, but don't you think that, rather than bestiality / paedophilia, one could argue that polyamoryous marriage could be the next step on the 'slope'? ...
I agree that polyamorous marriage is a far more logical progression. I also agree that any discussion about that is probably going to be about the practicalities ('we don't think it will work well in most cases') rather than the morality ('even an ideal polyamorous marriage is intrinsically wrong'). ...
The non-religious, non-moral, non-slippery problem with any form of multiple marriage is mathematical. One person marrying 3 others means 2 others don't get a partner. And since marriage both requires wealth and helps build wealth, the wealthy will be able to marry as often as they want, and get wealthier doing it. A society that allows multiple marriage will find that there are more and more poor, single people as time goes on.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
One person marrying 3 others means 2 others don't get a partner.
This assumes that we're talking about pure polygyny or pure polyandry.
So yes, widespread polygyny following the Muslim or Fundamental Mormon model leads to an oversupply of young, poor, single men who can't get laid. Which is a problem for a society.
Among those that call themselves polyamourists, the gender balance is more even.
But what we would be talking about here is legal recognition of existing relationships. Nobody thinks that gay marriage caused more gay couples to exist - just that it provided legal recognition for existing couples. So why should recognizing polygamy cause more polygamous arrangements to exist?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
One person marrying 3 others means 2 others don't get a partner.
This assumes that we're talking about pure polygyny or pure polyandry.
So yes, widespread polygyny following the Muslim or Fundamental Mormon model leads to an oversupply of young, poor, single men who can't get laid. Which is a problem for a society.
Among those that call themselves polyamourists, the gender balance is more even.
tangental fun fact: the early Mormons were polyamourist, not polygymists. Some of Joseph Smith's multiple wives, for example, had other husbands (who supported them financially, but that's another discussion).
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
ISTM that most slippery slope arguments are sleight of hand straw man arguments, in which premises are attributed to the opponent that they don't actually hold. On the "gay marriage leads to pedophilia" front, for example, the person making the slippery slope argument is assuming that the defense of gay marriage is based on the premise that people should be free to do whatever they like sexually, when the real basis of the argument is quite different. The euthanasia question is similar in some respects: some people support death with dignity laws because they believe that people should not be forced to endure intractable pain and suffering; some because they believe people are autonomous beings who have the right to decide how to dispose of their own lives. Slippery slope arguments are a problem for the first group (since the question of how much suffering is too much doesn't lend itself to neat binary answers), not so much for the second. But I have heard opponents make slippery slop arguments against the first position as if they were arguing against the second.
Slippery slopes do exist: racial equality does indeed lead to interracial marriage, as it should--that was only an effective argument for those who were firmly against both to begin with.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Nobody thinks that gay marriage caused more gay couples to exist - just that it provided legal recognition for existing couples.
Ahem... I do think that sexual orientation is a continuum of both biological and social factors. Accepting gay sexuality as normal and socially respectable does make it likely that more people will be gay. Yes, some folks are hard-wired gay and some are hard-wired straight. But, for some percentage of the population, I suspect that the increasing tolerance (indeed, cachet) of being gay will increase the number of people who find themselves to be gay. It is rather like the old La Rochefoucauld line that few people would ever have fallen in love had they not heard it talked about. However, that is only a concern for those who find something wrong with being gay -- which seems to bring us back to Timothy the Obscure's point.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Nobody thinks that gay marriage caused more gay couples to exist - just that it provided legal recognition for existing couples.
Ahem... I do think that sexual orientation is a continuum of both biological and social factors. Accepting gay sexuality as normal and socially respectable does make it likely that more people will be gay. Yes, some folks are hard-wired gay and some are hard-wired straight. But, for some percentage of the population, I suspect that the increasing tolerance (indeed, cachet) of being gay will increase the number of people who find themselves to be gay. It is rather like the old La Rochefoucauld line that few people would ever have fallen in love had they not heard it talked about. However, that is only a concern for those who find something wrong with being gay -- which seems to bring us back to Timothy the Obscure's point.
--Tom Clune
This gets I think, into the semantic battleground that exists as to whether 'gay' is referring to behaviour or to a preference that exists regardless of whether it is acted upon. Conservative Christians don't think you're 'gay' if you're married to a woman, fancy men but never have sex with them. Most LGBT people think that you are.
Acceptance as normal would increase the number of 'gay' people in the conservative Christian sense. It would not increase the number of 'gay' people in the LGBT sense.
(Those on the Ship who know my story recognise I am pretty much a poster child for the distinction.)
[ 02. May 2014, 03:38: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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