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                                                    Canadian Journal of Philosophy

                                                    Article contents

                                                    What's Wrong with Slippery Slope Arguments?

                                                    Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

                                                    Trudy Govier
                                                    Trudy Govier*
                                                    Affiliation:
                                                    Trent University
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                                                    Extract

                                                    Slippery slope arguments are commonly thought to be fallacious. But is there a single fallacy which they all commit? A study of applied logic texts reveals competing diagnoses of the supposed error, and several recent authors take slippery slope arguments seriously. Clearly, there is room for comment. I shall give evidence of divergence on the question of what sort of argument constitutes a slippery slope, distinguish four different types of argument which have all been deemed to be slippery slopes, and contend that two of these types need involve no logical error.

                                                    We find in textbook accounts three quite differently oriented treatments of slippery slope: conceptual — relating to vagueness and the ancient sorites paradox; precedential — relating to the need to treat similar cases consistently; and causal — relating to the avoidance of actions which will, or would be likely to, set off a series of undersirable events.

                                                    Information

                                                    Type
                                                    Research Article
                                                    Information
                                                    Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 1982 , pp. 303 - 316
                                                    Copyright
                                                    Copyright © The Authors 1982

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                                                    References

                                                    1

                                                    1 Cf. Yale Kamisar, ‘Against Euthanasia,’ in R. Abelson and M.L. Friquegnon, eds. Ethics for Modern Life; Sissela Bok, Lying; and Gregory Trianosky, ‘Rule Utilitarianism and the Slippery Slope,’ Journal of Philosophy, 1978

                                                    2

                                                    2 Scriven, Reasoning, 117;Google Scholar S.N. Thomas, Practical Reasoning in Natural language, 204-51; Robert J. Fogelin, Understanding Arguments, 77-81; and T. Edward Dames, Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 37-9

                                                    3

                                                    3 Scriven, 117

                                                    4

                                                    4 Beardsley, Thinking Straight 4th. edn., 146-50; Gilbert, M.A., How to Win an Argument, 98-104

                                                    5

                                                    5 Beardsley, 151-2. In Beardsley's end-of-chapter exercises, examples # 3 and #5 both mix empirical considerations with conceptual ones.

                                                    6

                                                    6 Logical Self-Defense, 163-9

                                                    7

                                                    7 Ibid., 165

                                                    8

                                                    8 Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: a Treatise on Argumentation, transl. by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver (Notre Dame, lnd: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 283

                                                    9

                                                    9 Ibid., 286

                                                    10

                                                    10 Glover, Jonathan Causing Death and Saving Lives (London: Penguin Books 1977), 165-8Google Scholar

                                                    11

                                                    11 Gregory Trianosky, ‘Rule Utilitarianism and the Slippery Slope,’ Journal of Philosophy, 1978; Joel Rudinow, ‘On “The Slippery Slope“', Analysis, 1974

                                                    12

                                                    12 I am indebted here to Black's, Max ‘Reasoning with Loose Concepts,’ in Models of Precision (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1970).Google Scholar

                                                    13

                                                    13 Rudinow, 173-4

                                                    14

                                                    14 I owe my awareness of this type of argument from precedence to Professor Robert Pinto, Department of Philosophy, University of Windsor.

                                                    15

                                                    15 Example from Gilbert, 103.

                                                    16

                                                    16 For'would if performed’ one might sometimes find ‘would risk, if performed'; i.e. the consideration might be that if (a) is performed there is a significant risk of e1, … en– What I have to say about Type Ill would equally well apply if this substitution were made.

                                                    17

                                                    17 Reported in a review of a book entitled Dear Dr. Stopes, by Judith Finlayson, in the Globe and Mail for January 13, 1979.

                                                    18

                                                    18 Bok, 173

                                                    19

                                                    19 Yale Kamisar, ‘Against Euthanasia.'

                                                    20

                                                    20 Trianosky, 414

                                                    21
                                                    Cited by
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                                                    Crossref Citations
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                                                    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.
                                                    Whitt, L. A. 1984. Acceptance and the Problem of Slippery-Slope Insensitivity in Rule-Utilitarianism. Dialogue, Vol. 23, Issue. 4, p. 649.
                                                    Van Eemeren, Frans H. and Grootendorst, Rob 1989. A transition stage in the theory of fallacies. Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 13, Issue. 1, p. 99.
                                                    Wright, Walter 2000. Historical Analogies, Slippery Slopes, and the Question of Euthanasia. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Vol. 28, Issue. 2, p. 176.
                                                    Trotter, Griffin 2000. Assisted Suicide and the Duty to Die. The Journal of Clinical Ethics, Vol. 11, Issue. 3, p. 260.
                                                    Launis, Veikko 2002. Human gene therapy and the slippery slope argument. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Vol. 5, Issue. 2, p. 169.
                                                    Goffi, Jean-Yves 2004. Penser l'euthanasie. p. 187.
                                                    2005. Should We Be Compelled to Have Identity Cards? Justifications for the Legal Enforcement of Obligations. Political Studies, Vol. 53, Issue. 2, p. 243.
                                                    Hahn, Ulrike and Oaksford, Mike 2006. A Bayesian Approach to Informal Argument Fallacies. Synthese, Vol. 152, Issue. 2, p. 207.
                                                    Corner, Adam and Hahn, Ulrike 2007. Evaluating the Meta-Slope: Is there a Slippery Slope Argument against Slippery Slope Arguments?. Argumentation, Vol. 21, Issue. 4, p. 349.
                                                    de la Vieja, M.<sup>a</sup> Teresa López 2010. La pendiente resbaladiza. p. 183.
                                                    Corner, Adam Hahn, Ulrike and Oaksford, Mike 2011. The psychological mechanism of the slippery slope argument. Journal of Memory and Language, Vol. 64, Issue. 2, p. 133.
                                                    Jefferson, Anneli 2014. Slippery Slope Arguments. Philosophy Compass, Vol. 9, Issue. 10, p. 672.
                                                    Walton, Douglas 2014. Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. p. 1.
                                                    Düber, Dominik Rojek, Tim Graumann, Sigrid Spranger, Tade Matthias Löschke, Jörg Heinrichs, Bert Salloch, Sabine Lanzerath, Dirk Hübner, Dietmar Horn, Christoph Heinrichs, Bert Reichardt, Bastian Potthast, Thomas Knell, Sebastian Lanzerath, Dirk Fuchs, Michael Ach, Johann S. Schaber, Peter Tremmel, Jörg Sturma, Dieter Düber, Dominik Gutmann, Thomas Quante, Michael Sturma, Dieter Pinsdorf, Christina Hubig, Christoph Grunwald, Armin Birnbacher, Dieter Neuhäuser, Christian Hermer¨¦n, Göran and Knell, Sebastian 2015. Handbuch Bioethik. p. 9.
                                                    Moreso, José Juan 2015. Argument Types and Fallacies in Legal Argumentation. Vol. 112, Issue. , p. 53.
                                                    van Eemeren, Frans H. and Grootendorst, Rob 2015. Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative Discourse. Vol. 27, Issue. , p. 611.
                                                    Myskja, Bjørn K. 2016. Assistert befruktning og familieverdier i forandring: Er vi på et moralsk skråplan?. Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift, Vol. 33, Issue. 1-2, p. 45.
                                                    Walton, Douglas 2016. Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. p. 2623.
                                                    Doury, Marianne 2019. Argumentation in Actual Practice. Vol. 17, Issue. , p. 13.
                                                    Yu, Zhe 2020. Logic and Argumentation. Vol. 12061, Issue. , p. 346.
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