slippery slope fallacyWestern philosophyThis chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the slippery slope. According to Patrick Hurley in A Concise Introduction to Logic, "the fallacy of slippery slope is a variety of the false cause fallacy. It occurs when the ...
That may be true, in the case of smoking at least, but hindsight is easy. How can you tell if a slippery-slope argument is valid when you’re standing at the top of the slope? Here, again, is the philosophy professor Chris Tindale. ...
The slippery slope argument is clearly invalid if it is meant to be a point of logic, for it does not follow that "if b is an exception to A, then no part of A is true." Specific exceptions to a rule or principle do not in any way logically imply that the rule is otherwise fals...
However, slippery slope arguments are not always negative or oppositional. It is possible to use a slippery slope argument to argue in favor of a proposition. In this case, they appeal to positive emotions like optimism. For example, “If we give everyone universal basic income, people will t...
2. Why is this error in logic referred to as the slippery slope fallacy? A first stage is seen as causing a slide down through many other stages to a final stage, but the sequence of events is assumed, rather than proven. A first stage is seen as sliding the bar higher for employee...
Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) of the form if A, then C describe an initial proposal (A) and a predicted, undesirable consequence of this proposal (C) (e.g., “If cannabis is ever legalized, then eventually cocaine will be legalized, too”). Despite SSAs being a common rhetorical device...
Lawrence A. Stanley has a B.A. in Philosophy from George Washington University and a Juris Doctor from Cardozo School of Law. He has authored or co-authored appeal briefs in U.S. v. Knox and U.S. v. Various Articles of Merchandise, Schedule No. 287, among other cases, and amicus br...
What, then, is the function of slippery slope arguments in moral debate? Do they just point out these obvious facts? No. If that was all they did, then it seems they would be part of every moral assessment. They aren= t. That is because their principal use is to defend the status ...
The WEIRD Trio: The Cultural Gap between Physicians, Learners, and Patients in Pluralistic Societies The Journal After Fifty Years More from Oxford Academic Arts and Humanities Bioethics Biological Sciences Medical Ethics Medicine and Health Moral Philosophy Philosophy Science and Mathematics ...
There are various types of slippery slope arguments that should be carefully distinguished. We should also distinguish the contexts in which the slope is used because the mechanisms of social dynamics and the role of logic differ in each of these contexts. They are not fallacies, but they are ...