Comment by brookst
8 days ago
Slippery slope arguments are by definition wrong. You have to say that the proposition itself is just fine (thereby ceding the argument) but that it should be treated as unacceptable because of a hypothetical future where something qualitatively different “could” happen.
If there’s not a real argument based on the actual specifics, better to just allow folks to carry on.
This is simply wrong. The slippery slope comparison works precisely because the argument is completely true for a physical slippery slope: the speed is small and controllable at the beginning, but it puts you on an inevitable path to much quicker descent.
So, the argument is actually perfectly logically valid even if you grant that the initial step is OK, as long as you can realistically argue that the initial step puts you on an inevitable downward slope.
For example, a pretty clearly valid slippery slope argument is "sure, if NATO bombed a few small Russian assets in Ukraine, that would be a net positive in itself - but it's a very slippery slope from there to nuclear war, because Russia would retaliate and it would lead to an inevitable escalation towards all-out war".
The slippery slope argument is only wrong if you can't argue (or prove) the slope is actually slippery. That is, if you just say "we can't take a step in this direction, because further out that way there are horrible outcomes", without any reason given to think that one step in the direction will force one to make a second step in that direction, then it's a sophism.
This herbal medication that makes you feel better is only going to lead to the pharmaceutical industrial complex, and therefore you must not have it.
This is an example of an invalid argument, because you haven't proven or even argued that the slope (from taking a herbal medicine to big pharma) is slippery.
Pretty sure you're playing some post ad hoc fallacies now.
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You don't have to logically concede a proposition is fine. You can still point to an outcome being an unknown.
There's a reason we have the idiom, "better the devil you know".