7 ms·

I never understood why "slippery slope" was listed among other logical fallacies. It is exactly the opposite.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
When the UK brought in laws around lockdowns and handling covid people here were complaining that it was a slippery slope and the government would never give up those restrictions yet they did exactly that and those laws are no longer in play. In that case the slippery slope argument was a fallacy.
- heurisko 5y ago
  There was indeed a slippery slope from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to extended lockdowns. I don't think those policies necessarily were a net benefit, either, particularly in the case of mask mandates for children, which weren't shown as effective enough to warrant damaging the mental health of children. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1044767/Evidence_summary_-_face_coverings.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      > Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. > Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy. That is wrong. What you mentioned is the very definition of a slippery slope, where the conditional relationships of the hypothetical syllogism do not hold.
- roenxi 5y ago
  We've established - quite clearly - that in an emergency the government can lock everything down for 2 years and that lip service to liberty or human rights means nothing. Emergencies happen every 2-3 years. Why won't we see similar anti-liberty measures again in the next 20 years? 'We' 'know' it 'works'. It isn't even clear that we'll be spared another pandemic through that timeframe, the world is quite small these days and it doesn't look like we're winding back on the interconnected globe. Furthermore we've not proven that the laws have been given up; the impacts of the anti-liberty legislation in the wake of 9/11 took almost a decade to sink in and enter the public discourse. The surveillance and enforcement measures used to enforce compliance through COVID are firmly still on the table. Probably help protect children and/or fight Russians or something. Worked in China, great impacts on crime, etcetera, etcetera.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >Furthermore we've not proven that the laws have been given up They expired on 25th March 2022 barring a small number of administrative issues which have been extended.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > Emergencies happen every 2-3 years. The last time a pandemic of this scale happened was a century ago. True, with the destruction of animal habitats and climate change ( which feeds into the former), we'll probably see more epidemics from now on. And yes, the restrictions worked against that type of emergency - an airborne virus of pandemic proportions. It's a fallacy to claim that now that we know all that and the laws have expired, next time there's an emergency of any kind governments will just impose lockdowns and do contact tracing. There's simply no basis for such an outrageous claim. > The surveillance and enforcement measures used to enforce compliance through COVID are firmly still on the table. Oh yes, QR codes surveillance.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >Oh yes, QR codes surveillance. This but unironically. Do you not see the surveillance implications of having your p̵a̵p̵e̵r̵s̵ vaccine passports scanned everywhere you go?
- autoexec 5y ago
  My go-to example is all the talk from conservatives about how allowing same-sex marriage would lead to people marrying animals. “this is gonna be a totally different country than it is right now. Laws that you think are in stone -- they're gonna evaporate, man. You'll be able to marry a goat -- you mark my words!” - Bill O'Reilly
wepple 5y ago
Slippery slope isn’t automatically a fallacy. It’s a fallacy if you don’t articulate why A would lead to B. The government using an anti-CSAM filter to further restrict, say, copyright infringements has precedent, so could be a valid slippery slope. The idea people pushed that marriage equality would lead to people being able to legally marry their animals was fallacious because nobody could articulate a logical jump from same sec couples to interspecies.
- radford-neal 5y ago
  Your last sentence seems to itself refute the point it is trying to make. You refer to "marriage equality", not "same-sex marriage". So you presumably think that the justification for allowing same-sex marriage is not some consideration of whether recognizing same-sex marriages in particular is beneficial, but rather that the justification is that they must be allowed for "equality". That justification easily generalizes to any other case where someone wants to enter into a "marriage" that is not currently recognized. [ Note: Personally, I think the state should have nothing whatever to do with marriage, obviating the entire issue. ]
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Marriage equality is generally implied (if not expressly stated) that it is about humans. Functionally speaking, there's no evidence to show that people who like people of the same sex might move on to toasters. The movement was always about people. The lack of specificity was because the context was obvious, not because it was nebulous.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      The next point along the slippery slope would more likely be forcing states to accept polygamous marriages of more than 2 people. Another point on the slope might be allowing siblings to marry (especially if they are the same sex so there is no danger of inbreeding). Perhaps the reason why marrying toasters is unlikely to be anywhere on the slope is that, from the government's perspective, a marriage is a legal contract entered into by the parties. It's not clear what a one-sided legal contract with a toaster would look like, beyond the mere recognition of property ownership. One possible extension, though, could be marrying a corporation, since they have legal personhood. Perhaps that right will be moot once polygamy becomes legal, or alternatively someone will try to make polygamy legal by attempting to marry a corporation owned by their two intended spouses.
singlow 5y ago
Look, if you stop considering slippery slope to be a fallacy, next thing you'll start making straw men arguments.
roenxi 5y ago
It is a bit of a tricky one; there are a lot of valid and reasonable arguments in the same mental area as slippery slopes. But the argument that must be rejected is "this is a step in the direction of X, therefore it is equivalent to supporting X", which is a common argument and a bad one. Arguments in that form should be rejected.
trashtester 5y ago
A "slippery slope" argument that something is dangerous is, imho, similar to use a corellation to argue that there is a direct causal link between two observations. Neither are sufficient to prove such claims. But, both _may_, depending on other information, be evidence supporting the claims, even if they do not prove the claim outright. In other words, slippery slope areguments (like correlation arguments) are fallacies if they are claimed as definitive proofs for a claim being made, but are not fallacies if used as supporting evidence for a claim or if arguing that the claim should be considered a possibility that may need to be considered or investigated. In bayesian reasoning, both can be used as evidence for some claim, that creates a new set of (posterior) probabilities for a set of mutually exclusive claims based on a set of prior probabilities. For instance, lets say you are concerned that some president may end up as a dictator. In a democracy, the prior probability may be relatively small. Then, lets assume the country abolishes term grants more power to the president in some time of emergency. In that case, one could argue using a sliding slope argument that the risk that the posterior probability of the president ending up as a dictator had increased after being granted more powers.
goto11 5y ago
Logical fallacies are only fallacies when they are presented as if the conclusion follows by logical necessity from the argument, as in a mathematical proof. Often "logical fallacy" is taking to mean "bad argument", but that not necessarily the case. A slippery slope argument can be a reasonable and valid argument, it is only a fallacy when presented as if A by logical necessity leads to B. But most debate arguments does not claim to be logical proofs in the first case. "Anytime A have been done in the past it has inevitably lead to B, therefore it will happen again". This might be a very good argument, but it is just not a logical proof that A will always and inevitably lead to B.
- SkyBelow 5y ago
  This is a point I wish more people would understand. There are logical fallacies that always make for a bad argument and logical fallacies that are reasonable but not logical proofs. For example correlation causation is one that needs to be treated with care, but correlation is often investigated further by scientists to find causation. It does not prove it exists, but it does indicate an area fruitful to research further. But the texas sharp shooter fallacy and cherry picking data does not make for a good argument nor serve as a useful indicator of where one might dig for further information.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    It even has a name! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
GauntletWizard 5y ago
Slippery slope is a logical fallacy, and not a rhetorical one. Logic and rhetoric follow different rules. Logic is purely binary - If I say "Burgers are unhealthy", and you can find one example that fits the definition of a hamburger that is made of plants and not full of fats, you have disproven my logic. Rhetorically, though, the point will stand as most burgers are "sometimes food". One great way of thinking about it in modern terms is thus: Rhetoric is Bayesian. You're operating on probabilities. There's a ton of things that are likely to happen but not guaranteed. There's a ton of questions to which there is a large field of possibilities, and one action can cause opposite effects in different cases. One of the best examples in modern times is "Appeal to authority:" This Doctor say X is true, therefore X must be true. Even large groups of doctors have gotten important things wrong[1]. Thus, a logical fallacy - X says Y is enough to create a predicate as the beginning of a chain of logic, but it is not "Proof" within a logical chain. "X says Y. X is a Doctor. Therefore Y" is fallacious logic. Nonetheless, you should listen to doctors, because rhetorically they probably know what they're talking about on medical issues. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
whiddershins 5y ago
Scot Adams. Full stop.

When the UK brought in laws around lockdowns and handling covid people here were complaining that it was a slippery slope and the government would never give up those restrictions yet they did exactly that and those laws are no longer in play. In that case the slippery slope argument was a fallacy.

heurisko 5y ago
There was indeed a slippery slope from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to extended lockdowns. I don't think those policies necessarily were a net benefit, either, particularly in the case of mask mandates for children, which weren't shown as effective enough to warrant damaging the mental health of children. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1044767/Evidence_summary_-_face_coverings.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    > Something taking longer than expected doesn't mean it's a slippery slope. > Whether they were effective or not is orthogonal to whether the slippery slope argument is a fallacy. That is wrong. What you mentioned is the very definition of a slippery slope, where the conditional relationships of the hypothetical syllogism do not hold.
roenxi 5y ago
We've established - quite clearly - that in an emergency the government can lock everything down for 2 years and that lip service to liberty or human rights means nothing. Emergencies happen every 2-3 years. Why won't we see similar anti-liberty measures again in the next 20 years? 'We' 'know' it 'works'. It isn't even clear that we'll be spared another pandemic through that timeframe, the world is quite small these days and it doesn't look like we're winding back on the interconnected globe. Furthermore we've not proven that the laws have been given up; the impacts of the anti-liberty legislation in the wake of 9/11 took almost a decade to sink in and enter the public discourse. The surveillance and enforcement measures used to enforce compliance through COVID are firmly still on the table. Probably help protect children and/or fight Russians or something. Worked in China, great impacts on crime, etcetera, etcetera.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >Furthermore we've not proven that the laws have been given up They expired on 25th March 2022 barring a small number of administrative issues which have been extended.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > Emergencies happen every 2-3 years. The last time a pandemic of this scale happened was a century ago. True, with the destruction of animal habitats and climate change ( which feeds into the former), we'll probably see more epidemics from now on. And yes, the restrictions worked against that type of emergency - an airborne virus of pandemic proportions. It's a fallacy to claim that now that we know all that and the laws have expired, next time there's an emergency of any kind governments will just impose lockdowns and do contact tracing. There's simply no basis for such an outrageous claim. > The surveillance and enforcement measures used to enforce compliance through COVID are firmly still on the table. Oh yes, QR codes surveillance.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Oh yes, QR codes surveillance. This but unironically. Do you not see the surveillance implications of having your p̵a̵p̵e̵r̵s̵ vaccine passports scanned everywhere you go?
autoexec 5y ago
My go-to example is all the talk from conservatives about how allowing same-sex marriage would lead to people marrying animals. “this is gonna be a totally different country than it is right now. Laws that you think are in stone -- they're gonna evaporate, man. You'll be able to marry a goat -- you mark my words!” - Bill O'Reilly

wepple 5y ago

Slippery slope isn’t automatically a fallacy. It’s a fallacy if you don’t articulate why A would lead to B. The government using an anti-CSAM filter to further restrict, say, copyright infringements has precedent, so could be a valid slippery slope. The idea people pushed that marriage equality would lead to people being able to legally marry their animals was fallacious because nobody could articulate a logical jump from same sec couples to interspecies.

radford-neal 5y ago
Your last sentence seems to itself refute the point it is trying to make. You refer to "marriage equality", not "same-sex marriage". So you presumably think that the justification for allowing same-sex marriage is not some consideration of whether recognizing same-sex marriages in particular is beneficial, but rather that the justification is that they must be allowed for "equality". That justification easily generalizes to any other case where someone wants to enter into a "marriage" that is not currently recognized. [ Note: Personally, I think the state should have nothing whatever to do with marriage, obviating the entire issue. ]
- kube-system 5y ago
  Marriage equality is generally implied (if not expressly stated) that it is about humans. Functionally speaking, there's no evidence to show that people who like people of the same sex might move on to toasters. The movement was always about people. The lack of specificity was because the context was obvious, not because it was nebulous.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    The next point along the slippery slope would more likely be forcing states to accept polygamous marriages of more than 2 people. Another point on the slope might be allowing siblings to marry (especially if they are the same sex so there is no danger of inbreeding). Perhaps the reason why marrying toasters is unlikely to be anywhere on the slope is that, from the government's perspective, a marriage is a legal contract entered into by the parties. It's not clear what a one-sided legal contract with a toaster would look like, beyond the mere recognition of property ownership. One possible extension, though, could be marrying a corporation, since they have legal personhood. Perhaps that right will be moot once polygamy becomes legal, or alternatively someone will try to make polygamy legal by attempting to marry a corporation owned by their two intended spouses.

singlow 5y ago

Look, if you stop considering slippery slope to be a fallacy, next thing you'll start making straw men arguments.

roenxi 5y ago

It is a bit of a tricky one; there are a lot of valid and reasonable arguments in the same mental area as slippery slopes. But the argument that must be rejected is "this is a step in the direction of X, therefore it is equivalent to supporting X", which is a common argument and a bad one. Arguments in that form should be rejected.

trashtester 5y ago

A "slippery slope" argument that something is dangerous is, imho, similar to use a corellation to argue that there is a direct causal link between two observations. Neither are sufficient to prove such claims. But, both _may_, depending on other information, be evidence supporting the claims, even if they do not prove the claim outright. In other words, slippery slope areguments (like correlation arguments) are fallacies if they are claimed as definitive proofs for a claim being made, but are not fallacies if used as supporting evidence for a claim or if arguing that the claim should be considered a possibility that may need to be considered or investigated. In bayesian reasoning, both can be used as evidence for some claim, that creates a new set of (posterior) probabilities for a set of mutually exclusive claims based on a set of prior probabilities. For instance, lets say you are concerned that some president may end up as a dictator. In a democracy, the prior probability may be relatively small. Then, lets assume the country abolishes term grants more power to the president in some time of emergency. In that case, one could argue using a sliding slope argument that the risk that the posterior probability of the president ending up as a dictator had increased after being granted more powers.

goto11 5y ago

Logical fallacies are only fallacies when they are presented as if the conclusion follows by logical necessity from the argument, as in a mathematical proof. Often "logical fallacy" is taking to mean "bad argument", but that not necessarily the case. A slippery slope argument can be a reasonable and valid argument, it is only a fallacy when presented as if A by logical necessity leads to B. But most debate arguments does not claim to be logical proofs in the first case. "Anytime A have been done in the past it has inevitably lead to B, therefore it will happen again". This might be a very good argument, but it is just not a logical proof that A will always and inevitably lead to B.

SkyBelow 5y ago
This is a point I wish more people would understand. There are logical fallacies that always make for a bad argument and logical fallacies that are reasonable but not logical proofs. For example correlation causation is one that needs to be treated with care, but correlation is often investigated further by scientists to find causation. It does not prove it exists, but it does indicate an area fruitful to research further. But the texas sharp shooter fallacy and cherry picking data does not make for a good argument nor serve as a useful indicator of where one might dig for further information.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  It even has a name! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

GauntletWizard 5y ago

Slippery slope is a logical fallacy, and not a rhetorical one. Logic and rhetoric follow different rules. Logic is purely binary - If I say "Burgers are unhealthy", and you can find one example that fits the definition of a hamburger that is made of plants and not full of fats, you have disproven my logic. Rhetorically, though, the point will stand as most burgers are "sometimes food". One great way of thinking about it in modern terms is thus: Rhetoric is Bayesian. You're operating on probabilities. There's a ton of things that are likely to happen but not guaranteed. There's a ton of questions to which there is a large field of possibilities, and one action can cause opposite effects in different cases. One of the best examples in modern times is "Appeal to authority:" This Doctor say X is true, therefore X must be true. Even large groups of doctors have gotten important things wrong[1]. Thus, a logical fallacy - X says Y is enough to create a predicate as the beginning of a chain of logic, but it is not "Proof" within a logical chain. "X says Y. X is a Doctor. Therefore Y" is fallacious logic. Nonetheless, you should listen to doctors, because rhetorically they probably know what they're talking about on medical issues. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

whiddershins 5y ago

Scot Adams. Full stop.