The Slippery Slope
What is The Slippery Slope?
A slippery slope asserts that once A happens you slide all the way to a catastrophic Z, without showing that any single step in between has to follow. “Offer a logic course today and tomorrow they’ll demand a course in everything.” “An hour of gaming a day and there’s no way into university.” “Give ground this once and you’ll be giving ground forever.” The response is to walk the chain one link at a time: why does the first step have to produce the second? Is there a rule or a mechanism that would interrupt it? How likely is each step — and once you multiply them together, what is left?
The Slippery Slope: common mistakes and how to handle them
Worth distinguishing: a chain of consequences that is actually supported by evidence — second-order thinking — is not a slippery slope. The difference is whether each link has a basis, and whether probabilities and conditions are given, rather than the chain being welded shut with the word “inevitably”.
What the The Slippery Slope questions test
telling a slippery slope apart from a supported chain of consequences; naming the weakest link in the chain; supplying a rule or condition that would interrupt it; choosing the right way to question the argument.