Brilliant.
Did you just pit Wikipedia? I think you just pitted Wikipedia.
‘informal fallacy’, iirc, means one of several recognized debate tactics wherin you attempt to bypass the step of actually proving your point. Generally this involves some specific type of erroroneous logic bolstered by an appeal to emotion or ‘common sense’.
But isn’t the proper response to this argument not “hey, that’s a fallacy!” And instead, “I think you’re wrong that there’s some relationship between this declaration and the fall of logic.”
I guess my problem with calling slippery slope a fallacy is that it’s only a fallacy when one of it’s premises is incorrect. On that count, why don’t we call every argument with incorrect premises a fallacy? It seems to me that we don’t do that because we mean something slightly different by the word fallacy (even informal fallacy).
ETA: To put it another way, if we define fallacy as using shorthand in argumentation, then surely saying “that’s a slippery slope fallacy” is also a fallacy because it shortcuts the explanation of why this particular incarnation of the slippery slope is fallacious.
It’s not shorthand–it’s a shortcut that fails to substantiate the claim being made. Instead of stating a rational or testable chain of events (i.e. “Detaining unlawful combatants without due process allows precident to detain citizens who may be involved in activities associated with unlawful combants, which may lead to erosion of Consitutional protections recognizing a right to due process,”), it jumps from Point A to Point F without bothering to pass through the intervening logical steps (“Detaining unlawful combatants without due process is a slippery slope that leads to erosions of civil rights for citizens.”) If the argument is accepted as a basic assumption by all involved parties then there is, in practice, no constraining fallacy (though an attempt to diagram the argument symbolically will still display a logical leap) but the “slippery slope” claim is more generally used as an attempt to avoid making a complete argument, especially in the case that this specific part of the claim is prescient or empirical and therefore subject to contention.
A fallacy doesn’t make a claim wrong, but it does render the argument that uses it incomplete in a technical sense. It’s the lazy man’s way of avoiding making complete statements, and often used to distract attention from the fact that the argument lacks proper evidence. The oft-parodied “Won’t somebody think of the children!” is an extension of this, attempting to garner credence by inflating the hypothetical effects of any particular hazard upon a presumably more vulnerable and important segment of the population even though the hazard in question (adult pornography, health care costs, et cetera) may have no special impact on the group in question.
In short, yes, it is a fallacy.
Stranger
If it’s the actual structure of the argument it’s a formal fallacy, like the fallacy of the undistibuted middle. A formal fallacy renders the argument invalid, no further inquiry needed; the syllogism just doesn’t add up. An informal fallacy doesn’t automatically prove the argument invalid like a formal fallacy. Rather than speaking in terms of absolute validity and invalidity, it speaks to the strength or the weakness of the argument.
Exactly right, and that’s what makes it a slippery slope fallacy. It’s not a fallacy simply because it looks like a slippery slope fallacy usually looks, but because it infers that taking a course of action wil lead to dire results through a tenuous causal link.
Ok, then perhaps **CJJ **was right, and I simply don’t understand what it means to be an informal fallacy. So you’re telling me that any weak argument can be termed fallacious?
But again, it all comes down to how tenuous that causal link is. If my response to you is “that’s a fallacy” instead of “your causal link is insufficient,” I’ve committed as much of a fallacy as you have. Agreed?
Don’t confuse “informal fallacy” with formal fallacy. Informal fallacies are bad debate tactics, and are not necessarily related to what works and what doesn’t in a formal argument. They’re called fallacies as informal shorthand for “stop appealing to emotion or whatever other crappy argument tactic you’re using.”
Sure, but if your response to me is "That’s a slippery slope fallacy, then you have adequately explained the problem.
I would just add that I think I’m insufficiently defending the article from the OP. The argument in the article is that “slippery slope” is a metaphor for mechanisms that do actually exist, and that in many if not most cases taking a small step does making large steps easier and more likely.
Now, I think that’s a different definition of informal fallacy from the others above. You and others were saying that an informal fallacy depends on the content of the premises. So it has nothing to do with a generic tactic, and everything to do with the content of a particular argument.
If the slippery slope is a true fallacy, I suggest the US examines its entire constitution…
The article actually addresses this, if you care to read it (I realize it’s pretty long).
Once again, a “formal” fallacy is a demonstrably bad logical connection: If A then B if C then D, if A then D is a fallacious argument, logically proven false.
An “informal” fallacy means, yes, basically, that your argument is weak.
Not a “weak” argument, any argument that bypasses or assumes the steps needed to prove the conclusion (slippery-slope), assumes the conclusion as a premise (begging the question), presents a defense or attack of a concept in order to defend or attack a different concept (Straw man), etc., etc…
In short, yes, it is an “informal fallacy” every time you use a debate tactic, that while following the rules of formal logic does not in fact logically prove or advance your position, while still appearing to do so either by deception, emotional appeal, or assumption.
I disagree that the slippery slope does so either by deception, emotional appeal, or assumption. Those things can be part of a slippery slope argument, but there is nothing about the slippery slope itself which relies on one of those. Again, it is shorthand. It is a metaphor. But that’s because it doesn’t always make sense to outline the entire mechanism of the slippery slope each time one wishes to invoke it (just as it doesn’t always make sense to make clear all the premises behind an argument like “judges going against precedent has bad effects on predictability.”) There are hidden premises there, of course, but that’s not unique.
In any case, if we agree that some incarnations of the slippery slope are fallacious, and others are not, and the only dividing line is the quality of the premises, then what sense does it make to have a generic slippery slope fallacy?
A metaphor is not a logical argument. By definition, a metaphor is used to make comparisons in the relations between unlike sets objects. It is strictly illustrative–for instance, to describe in layman’s terms the way DNA replication works “like a zipper”–and any time you catch someone “reasoning” via metaphor a red flag should pop up.
This is not a valid argument for using a slippery slope claim. A subset of the chain of reasoning may already be proven, and therefore unnecessary of repetition, but one must make reference to this side argument in the context of the larger argument, not merely jump across it like an inconvenient ditch. In court, lawyers are required to cite precident or caselaw any time they make an argument that extends beyond the specific statutes at hand; in the sciences, one cites previous journal articles or standard reference texts. When a mathematician jumps over a step in his reasoning by stating, “It is a trivial assumption that…” he’s going to find himself in the middle of a feeding frenzy that makes a school of sharks look tame by comparison.
All appeals to “slippery slope” without expansion upon or reference to a complete chain or reasoning and/or qualified emprical data (whichever is most appropriate) is a logical fallacy. Again, this doesn’t have any impact on the truth or falsehood fo the statement in question, but rather your ability to demonstrate such.
Stranger
I confess, I didn’t. Sorry. But the concept is something that’s been something that’s been bugging me for years, and I therefore thank you for starting this thread, because I was too lazy to do something like it myself.
A valid logical connection is NOT a slippery slope fallacy. The only reason the term exists is because the fallacy is used so commonly it deserves its own name. My example in my first response “Harry Potter is about witchcraft, this will lead to the moral degredation of our society if we allow it in schools, which will destroy america and lead to rampant immorality” is a slippery slope. It provides a premise and then leads to a catastrophic conclusion without doing anything in the way of proving the conclusion or even the intermediary steps. It’s a fallacious argument because it creates an unsubstantiated conclusion. Furthermore, by creating a catastrophic conclusion, it creates an emotional pull of fear. People (well, stupid people, usually) are much more likely to throw their hands up and run around like chickens with their heads cut off if you throw them an argument that ends with the decline of humanity. THAT’S a slippery slope fallacy.
I think you’re trying to imply all that all forms of logical connection are incorrect, because there is a name for an incorrect, or more accurately, unsubstantiated logical connection. It is, in fact, fallacious to argue that “because I can make a logical connection that is valid, all logical connections are not fallacious”
(though it’s not a slippery slope, I believe that is in fact a formal logical fallacy, since your premise doesn’t lead to the conclusion at all).
I know what a metaphor is, and I disagree. People properly use metaphors in argumentation all the time.
On the contrary, mathematical proofs often take things as given from other mathematical proofs that are well-recognized. Similarly, when a lawyer cites an argument well-recognized from a previous case, he often need only cite the case instead of laying out the argument. Argumentation uses shorthand all the time.
I understand that this is the conventional view, and I am disagreeing with it. Did you take a look at the article?
If we allow “slippery slope” analogies, we will have no grounds for claiming that anything is a fallacy!
:dubious:
I think you’re conflating slippery slope and appeal to emotion. Surely you agree than one can exist without the other?
I’m arguing that the conclusion is often substantiated by common mechanisms that operate in economics, politics, and psychology, as outlined in the article.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that the slippery slope refers to principles which are always in operation which serve to substantiate the argument. It is true that the slippery slope might be incorrectly applied to a certain situation (as in your Harry Potter example), but that doesn’t prove that the slope itself is a fallacy.
I think we’re caught up in semantics that wouldn’t be an issue if people would read the article. At least the intro and conclusion.
Please see my response to Pravnik’s same tongue-in-cheek point above.