First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me–
but everything worked out JUST PEACHY!
Of course it does. But “shorthand” can’t take the place of “proof”. A lawyer can’t say., “of course, there are cases that prove my point, therefore…” He must cite the case upon which his argument relies which provides the opposition a chance to refute the specifics. This is shorthand only in the sense that he doesn’t have to retype the entire case (although generally he/she will quote the relevant portions). Similarly, mathemeticians can’t just say “of course it’s obvious that”, generally they’ll say, “in accordance with BlahBlah’s Proof we take…”
Saying “Richard Parker was able to buy an SUV cheaply, therefore the Earth is doomed!” is a slippery slope argument. It is fallacious even though it may actually be true.
I guess this is where the fundamental disagreement is. I don’t think that can properly be termed a slippery slope argument.
I don’t think an informal fallacy can be defined as a pattern of reasoning that relies on a faulty premise. It is rather a form of argument which is incomplete if the form by itself is used to prove a point.
To tie it to logical structure, it may be best described as an “incomplete syllogism”, rather than a syllogism that is absolutely false. Formal fallacies are false no matter how you shore up the syllogistic structure of the argument. Informal fallacies are those where the argument looks (at first glance) like a properly-structured syllogism, but which in reality is incomplete.
Slippery-slope fits this to a tee, because (as many comical posters here have done) I can construct absurd arguments using just the slippery-slope form. I can’t do this with, say, the usual Aristotelian “All A are B, C is an A, therefore C is a B” form.
I don’t think it’s fair to say slippery-slope is just a shorthand term–i.e. that the logical rigor is there but unstated–because in the real world most folks don’t use it that way; someone on this thread called it a shortcut argument, a very apt description IMO.
Even if someone salutes?
No they don’t. (People misuse metaphors in argument, however, all the time.) A metaphor is not a valid argument, period. It is an illustrative method. If you don’t understand this, then you don’t know what a metaphor is.
True, but simply arguing that “X is a slippery slope that leads to Y” with out any reference to an external (and logically or factually complete) argument, either one that is implicitly accepted by all parties or is explicitly defined, is a fallacy. This is what the slippery slope fallacy refers to.
It’s not “the conventional view”; the essential true or falsity of a claim is logically independent of any claims made in support of it. If I say that the Sun will rise tomorrow because little blue men come and push it across the sky, just because my argument is completely bogus and readily falsified doesn’t mean that the claim is incorrect. “Because B, A” is not a correct proof of “A, therefore B”.
I did read the article, and you seem to be misunderstanding or deliberately conflating the (entirely logical and demonstratable) notion that small actions can lead to increasingly more significant consequences with the logical fallacy of claiming that a specific set of actions will have dramatic consequences without an appropriate argument in justification. You’re throwing around “slippery slope” without properly defining what you mean, and arguing that a nonspecific use of the term equates to the stated fallacy.
Stranger
the…what…the…that’s the DEFINITION of the slippery slope fallacy.
from the wiki article
(bolding mine)
followed by
thus as I’ve been arguing for the entire thread, there is certainly such a thing as a valid slippery slope (ie. series of logical connections) but that does NOT rule out the existence of an improper usage of slippery slope, such as the SUV example
this is a fallacious use of the slippery slope argument, thus, it is a “slippery slope fallacy”.
Thus your argument “there are valid uses of slippery slope, therefore there is no such thing as a slippery slope fallacy” is wrong, because the definition of the fallacy acknowledges that a properly argued series of logical connections leading to a conclusion is a valid debate method (er, for that matter, the ONLY valid debate method) whereas a series of logical leaps unsubstantiated by independent proof (ref. wiki quote above) is a fallacy. This fallacy is often characterized by catastrophic conclusions, which often induce fear (as opposed to “appeal to emotion” which is something like “think of the children!”).
Actually I agree with you; this argument is so glib that anyone could see thru it. If, however, the arguer amplified the argument:
“Richard Parker was able to buy an SUV cheaply. SUV’s contribute to carbon emissins and increase the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming. Scientific studies on global warming show that its is moving the earth in a direction where it threatens the sustainability of human life on earth. Therefore, Richard Parker’s purchase of an SUV has contributed to the destruction of planet Earth.”
This argument is fallacious, because it relies exclusively on slippery-slope to get from “bought an SUV” to “dooming the earth.” I could not legitimately say the argument is illogical–mainly because there isn’t much formal logic there–but I would feel comfortable calling it fallacious.
I’m not sure I have time to reply to all of this, but I’ll try. I would only ask in return that you guys read the article I meant for this OP to be about.
I agree with this. I thought that definition seemed suspect.
I think this assumes that there isn’t some mechanism called the slippery slope that the arguer is invoking when he or she says or implies “A puts us on a slippery slope toward B”. That mechanism is what is outlined in the article. Of course, anyone can say that “A puts us on a slippery slope to B;” the simple recitation doesn’t make it so, just as saying that kleenex are explosive doesn’t make it so. But it also doesn’t make the use of the word explosive a fallacy.
It’s not a valid argument alone, just like a subject or a verb isn’t an argument. That doesn’t mean it can’t be part of a valid argument, in the rhetorical sense.
Good, I think we’re finally coming to some semantic agreement (which I’ll admit is entirely of my own making). This is indeed the “fallacy” I am disputing. The argument is that it’s not a fallacy because the metaphor “slippery slope” does refer to an external, factually complete argument.
Well, this goes back to whether one can properly refer to a complex set of mechanisms using shorthand. I maintain that one can, and that we necessarily do it all the time.
It was a mistake to reduce slippery slope to any argument in which there are a chain of logical connections. My mistake. I think my other recent points should serve to clarify.
Okay, sorry, I don’t get that at all. Just because it’s a brutally obvious example doesn’t make it invalid. Fallacy doesn’t have to be subtle.
You still seem to be conflating “making logical connections backed up by evidence which leads to a conclusion” with the words “slippery slope”, and then furthermore a certain type of informal fallacy called “slippery slope fallacy”.
The first part, “making logical connections backed up by evidence which leads to a conclusion” is the only valid way to debate. It’s the way arguments are supposed to be constructed.
Saying “this is a slippery slope” does not constitute a fallacy. In fact, one can validly claim “oh, this puts us on a slippery slope to this, given … <back up evidence, logical connections, and backup evidence for those logical connections>”
On the other hand, doing the same thing as the above “slippery slope” but omitting all forms of valid evidence and generally not following accepted rules for supporting your conclusion is a fallacy given the name of “the slippery slope fallacy” to illustrate that the person has used a slippery slope style argument (A -> B -> C which is usually a bad outcome and demonstrated an unavoidable consequence of A) in a fallacious manner
I don’t think this argument as written is either false or fallacious because of the word contributed. But even assuming that contributed were deleted, I still don’t think it counts as a slippery slope. When one invokes the slippery slope, they aren’t saying that it leads, logically, to result B. Rather, they are saying that it increases the chance of B happening. People can mis-use the argument, of course, but then they are simply misapplying an argument rather than committing a fallacy.
I’m arguing that slippery slope is a particular kind of A -> B-> C-> chain. A chain that involves causal connections based in economics, etc. Saying that gun registration puts us on a slippery slope to gun confiscation is only a fallacy if the term slippery slope doesn’t refer to some external construct with specific support for the causal connection.
which is the same thing I’m arguing. The term “slippery slope fallacy” specifically refers to that fallacious use of the argument tactic of “slippery slope”
I’m not sure what we’re debating, since you admit to that, and that’s my only point
actually, on edit, I think we’re arguing semantics, I’ll let my original post stand for historical accuracy, but I think I had a lightbulb moment that you’re attempting to say that because the term “slippery slope” is in fact defined, then it can’t be a fallacy??? If that’s it, why not?
Haha. I think the disagreement is over what to call it when someone invokes the slippery slope incorrectly. For example, I say “Eating poptarts puts me on a slippery slope to eating dog food.” This reference to the slippery slope doesn’t support the argument, since there seems to be no identified slippery slope mechanism that would make this so. But I don’t think it’s proper to call that an informal fallacy, any more than saying the statement “Eating poptarts, through a process of solar radiation, leads to eating dog food.” It is certainly a misunderstanding of solar radiation, but I wouldn’t call it a fallacy.
The essence of slippery slope is that one small change will lead to a larger, unacceptable change of the same type. This in and of itself cannot be assumed to be true, though to borrow a term from Stephen Colbert, it does have a ring of “truthiness”.
I would submit that rigorous arguments which look like slippery-slope arguments–when examined closely–rely on slippery-slope for structure only, not for logic. It’s therefore a way to package the presentation of an argument, and as with many things in life, people are fooled by outside appearances.
I don’t think the distinction that the argument “increases the chances of B” rather than “logically leads to B” is important; it still requires logic for one to determine that B’s chances will increase, so the argument still rests on a logical foundation, not a probability. To put it glibly, “A increases the chances of B” can be recast as “A logically leads to the chances of B increasing”.
All of the informal fallacies–Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Argument from authority, Ad hominem, etc.–have this form: They are really the packaging an argument comes in, packaging which is often mistaken for the logical rigor expected in a good argument. They are not logical fallacies because they have nothing to do with logic; the fallacy comes in when the speaker assumes they do.
A metaphor isn’t a valid logical argument, period. It is a strictly illustrative method to translate an unfamiliar concept into a context that the listener is comfortable with.
No, in fact, it doesn’t. That’s exactly what makes it a fallacy. If you say, “X is a slippery slope to Y because of argument W” (when W is a complete logical argument or set of uncontested data itself) then you aren’t engaging in a fallacious argument. However, the majority of the time when people refer to a “slippery slope” they are inferring some undeveloped intervening causal mechanism; that’s the fallacy.
Again, you can refer to an external argument; this is the whole point of using references or citations, and there is no inherent fallacy in this. But when the contender is offering “slippery slope” as being the aggravating mechanism between X and Y (“Gun registration is a slippery slope to gun confiscation,”) without some intermediary step, you engage in a fallacy; an argument in which the chain of reasoning has an unfilled gap. It’s not “shorthand”; it’s handwaving.
You continue to attempt to redefine “slippery slope fallacy” in a way that is totally antithetical to the definition of it, and thus make the statement meaningless. A fallacy is such because it substitutes some form of assumption (whether it turns out to be correct or not) for logic or data; becuase it is a placeholder, one can’t evaluate the falsity of it. By claiming that a “slippery slope” argument is a “shorthand” referent to some other argument that should be available to the other parties (a point that is not generally true), you are undefining this as a fallacy.
Stranger
The argument is that there is a “there” there when one speaks of slippery slope. I understand how, absent that, it would be a bad argument (or what some appear to define as an informal fallacy). But if we assume for a moment that the article is correct (and no one seems to be disputing that), then when one speaks of the slippery slope as their causal connection, they are referring to something which can be discussed and debated. They aren’t circumventing anything.