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Topic: Slippery slope

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	Logical Fallacy: Slippery Slope
		For this reason, causal slippery slopes are often the result of semantic ones.
		The fact that I list the causal version of the slippery slope as a fallacy does not mean that every argument with the form of a slippery slope is fallacious; rather, it means that sufficiently many are fallacious to make it worth including as a type of common logical error―that is, a fallacy.
		While we agree that some slippery slope arguments are cogent and others are fallacious, Volokh seems to think that more are cogent than I do.
	www.fallacyfiles.org /slipslop.html (1811 words)

	Slippery slope - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		In debate or rhetoric, the slippery slope is an argument for the likelihood of one event given another.
		However, the slippery slope claim requires independent justification to connect the inevitability of B to an occurrence of A. Otherwise the slippery slope scheme merely serves as a device of sophistry.
		The "slippery slope" approach may also relate to the conjunction fallacy: with a long string of steps leading to an undesirable conclusion, the chance of all the steps actually occurring is actually less than the chance of any one individual step occurring alone.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Slippery_slope (1414 words)

	BEYOND THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
		Slippery slopes are, I will argue, a real cause for concern, as legal thinkers such as Madison, Jackson, Brennan, Harlan, and Black have recognized.
		It turns out, though, that the mechanisms of many slippery slopes are closely connected to phenomena that contradict these simplifying assumptions: bounded rationality, rational ignorance, heuristics that people develop to deal with their bounded rationality, irrational choice behaviors such as context-dependence, and multi-peaked preferences.
		slippery slope inefficiency: Decision A may itself be socially beneficial, and many people might agree that it’s beneficial; but the reasonable concern that A will lead to B might prevent the decision from being implemented.
	www1.law.ucla.edu /~volokh/slippery.htm (2413 words)

	Voluntary euthanasia: slippery slopes and pendulums
		Slippery slope arguments claim that an apparently innocuous small step can act as the thin edge of the wedge to bring about undesirable major changes further in that direction.
		The "Dutch experience" is often said to confirm a slippery slope, and it is claimed that huge numbers of people are now being killed against their will.
		The dangers of slippery slopes are overstated, and they become particularly improbable when a clear distinction can be made between the desired and undesired behaviour.
	www.drs.org.au /articles/1997/euthanas.htm (1041 words)

	Sirlin.net — Your source of shocking insights on game design » Blog Archive » Slippery Slope and ...
		Sirlin was tempted to dub these games “slippery slope” - someone used to playing fighting games, where all you have to focus on is one character and his/her moveset, would be very likely to generalize about different types of complexities in different types of games and bring them to their own level.
		Slippery slope is just a way of generalizing how positions of advantage and disadvantage tend to affect the outcome on average.
		Slippery - In your defence, the picture and it’s caption does not match the description (in the picture, the zerg loses, but the protoss buildings suggest that the zerg were attacking, but the text describes a defender losing), but if you honestly feel that there is no slippery slope, let’s play some Starcraft for money.
	www.sirlin.net /archive/slippery-slope-and-perpetual-comeback (18573 words)

	MacKiDo/Thought/SlipperySlope
		The Slippery Slope argument is generally that we should not do one thing because it will lead to another thing, and then another, and then another, until you go crashing into the bottom.
		Often using a slippery slope argument (or explaining it and drawing attention to it) is to explain that the first action is wrong.
		But just because a slippery slope is logical fallacy, does not mean that the argument or points made by the argument are wrong.
	www.mackido.com /Thought/SlipperySlope.html (1380 words)

	Slippery Slope
		The essence of a "slippery slope" argument is this: this particular development, while not in and of itself evil, will lead to other developments that are really bad.
		"Slippery slope" arguments should always be rejected as feeble and specious and absurd.
		You see, that's another problem with slippery slope arguments-- if you follow the logic consistently, you would never permit anything, for there is nothing that does not come before something else.
	www.chromehorse.net /rants/rants00/slope.htm (568 words)

	BEYOND THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
		Slippery slopes are, I will argue, a real cause for concern, as legal thinkers such as Madison, Jackson, Brennan, Harlan, and Black have recognized.
		It turns out, though, that the mechanisms of many slippery slopes are closely connected to phenomena that contradict these simplifying assumptions: bounded rationality, rational ignorance, heuristics that people develop to deal with their bounded rationality, irrational choice behaviors such as context-dependence, and multi-peaked preferences.
		slippery slope inefficiency: Decision A may itself be socially beneficial, and many people might agree that it’s beneficial; but the reasonable concern that A will lead to B might prevent the decision from being implemented.
	www.law.ucla.edu /volokh/slippery.htm (2413 words)

	The Camel's Nose Is in the Tent
		Hence, first and foremost, slippery slopes are slopes of arguments: One practical argument tends to lead to another, which means that one justified action, often a decision, tends to lead to another.
		A slippery slope argument (SSA) is an argument about how the acceptance of one argument (regarding a decision, act, or policy) may lead to the acceptance of other arguments (regarding other decisions, acts, or policies).
		The resister of a slippery slope argument "should demand that the argument be looked at in a holistic way, and point out that, because of the vagueness of the key term, it is arbitrary to fasten on any particular point in the reapplication sequence." Walton, supra note 3, at 59.
	www.csun.edu /~dgw61315/camelsnose.html (20350 words)

	Living on a Slippery Slope
		Slippery slope arguments do claim that we should reject some proposed behaviors or policies because their likely consequences will be bad.
		To evaluate causal slippery slope arguments, I begin indirectly, by examining several cases in which slippery slope arguments have been or might be used, and contrast them with a clear case where such arguments would never be used.
		Slippery slope arguments gain much of their credence by exploiting this phenomenon, but they do so in ways that mask habits' central role in human behavior.
	www.stpt.usf.edu /hhl/papers/living_on_a_slippery_slope.htm (8643 words)

	Times & Seasons » Minority Report and the Normative Use of Slippery Slope Arguments
		IMO slippery slope arguments are only useful predictors of future behavior when there is really no acceptable distinction between the specific case and the future parade of horribles cases.
		My point was more to the effect that the same leftists who will sneer at conservative slippery slope arguments in policy analysis will resort to their own slippery slopes when a conservative policy is at issue.
		Most people that make slippery slope arguments are not being disingenuous (even leftists); rather, they are analyzing matters that genuinely concern them (at least that seems to be the case here at T&S–perhaps slippery slope arguments are in fact disingenuous if coming from the mouth of Teddy Kennedy or Trent Lott).
	www.timesandseasons.org /index.php?p=1339 (4246 words)

	Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate
		A slippery slope fallacy is an argument that says adopting one policy or taking one action will lead to a series of other policies or actions also being taken, without showing a causal connection between the advocated policy and the consequent policies.
		A popular example of the slippery slope fallacy is, "If we legalize marijuana, the next thing you know we'll legalize heroin, LSD, and crack cocaine." This slippery slope is a form of non sequitur, because no reason has been provided for why legalization of one thing leads to legalization of another.
		An alternative to the slippery slope argument is simply to point out that the principles espoused by your opposition imply the acceptability of certain other policies, so if we don't like those other policies, we should question whether we really buy those principles.
	www.csun.edu /~dgw61315/fallacies.html (5262 words)

	Geoffrey Nunberg -- Slippery Slopes (Site not responding. Last check: )
		In the press, the phrase "slippery slope" is more than seven times as common as it was twenty years ago.
		When you say that A puts us on a slippery slope to B, for example, you might mean only that A will create political momentum for B, or that A would make B cheaper or easier to implement.
		The Supreme Court justices love to torment advocates with slippery slope examples, in an effort to get them to clarify their positions, with the result that the Court transcripts often have the air of absurdist theater.
	www-csli.stanford.edu /~nunberg/slipslop.html (1000 words)

	Slippery slope yourself away - Opinions
		It should, because it is something called a slippery slope and it is being used more and more as a logical argument these days.
		The ironic thing is, the slippery slope is probably the least logical argument you can use, but it is not stopping anyone.
		Slippery slopes are being used to debate everything from abortion to drugs to movies to eating habits.
	www.thecurrentonline.com /media/paper304/news/2004/03/01/Opinions/Slippery.Slope.Yourself.Away-624770.shtml (436 words)

	SSRN-Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope by Eugene Volokh
		This article tries to go behind the metaphor of the slippery slope to the mechanisms by which one step today may make the next step more likely tomorrow.
		And this can happen not just with judicial decisions - where slippery slopes relate in complex ways to the system of precedent - but also with legislative ones, where precedent is not supposed to play a formal role.
		Understanding the full range of slippery slope mechanisms can help us evaluate the risk of slippage, craft better arguments related to this risk, and perhaps minimize this risk.
	papers.ssrn.com /sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=343640 (390 words)

	Slippery Slope
		If a person stands on a slippery slope, then one small misstep can force him to fall or begin the avalanche that causes havoc or destruction down the hill.
		The slippery slope fallacy occurs when an argument exaggerates the possible future consequences of an action, usually with the intention of frightening the audience; hence, slippery slope arguments are forms of the scare tactic.
		Slippery slope fallacies differ in that their arguments actually contain valid cause/effect relationships, but they are linked together loosely in a long chain of possible events.
	ksuweb.kennesaw.edu /~shagin/logfal-pbc-slipperyslope.htm (669 words)

	Columnist Ethics: No Reverse Slippery Slope
		It is over-used to be sure, but the "slippery slope" analogy has considerable value in ethical analysis.
		The ethical slope down is slippery because the distinctions between each marginally more unethical act are so vague and blurry that once the first line is crossed (at the top of the slope), it becomes a near certainty that the other lines will be crossed in no time at all.
		The use of the reverse slippery slope is harmful in several ways.
	www.ethicsscoreboard.com /list/columnist.html (1082 words)

	BMJ No 7070 Not a slippery slope
		The slippery slope concept is a prominent figure of argument in the current debate on bioethics.
		Outside Germany the prevalent concept on Nazi medicine is often expressly summed up by the slippery slope concept,(3) first formulated by Professor L Alexander, a consultant to the United States chief counsel for war crimes during the doctors' trial.
		The slippery slope argument dovetails with the "sudden subversion" concept, prevalent inside Germany and for decades aggressively promoted as the official view by the Chamber of Physicians.
	www.bmj.com /archive/7070nd3.htm (5526 words)

	Mission: Critical (Statistics)
		Those many questionable steps are what gives this fallacy its popular names, "slippery slope" and "domino theory," because once you begin accepting its tenuous connections, it's downhill or unstoppable from then on.
		In a slippery slope fallacy, the plausibility of its causal links is ignored, and the focus is entirely on the dire results at the end.
		It's a slippery slope to support a new sports stadium in a city with the argument that, otherwise, no professional teams will play there, and without professional sports, businesses will begin to leave, jobs will be lost, taxes will go up, and property taxes will go down.
	www.sjsu.edu /depts/itl/graphics/adhom/indirect.html (880 words)

	The Slippery Slope
		After my near accident, I was a little more cautious in looking out for slippery spots on the slippery slope.
		However, it was still slippery in spots and I had to tread carefully so I wouldn't find myself flat on my back looking up at the sky.
		It is at these times that we need to remember that we don't tread the slippery slopes alone and that everything is in God's control.
	www.paversnest.com /inspirational31.htm (650 words)

	It's a Slippery Slope
		But the silver-haired performer doesn't play his love of the slopes just for laughs; gliding into his monologue are touching revelations about his father's death, the breakup of his long-term relationship and his mother's suicide.
		Gray's path may be a slippery slope, but it's one well worth plunging down.
		It's a slippery slope for Amanjunkies; Aman resorts are temples of lavish indolence.
	www.infoplease.com /ipea/A0196114.html (432 words)

	Would legalizing voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide create a slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia?
		"Known as a slippery slope argument or what one commentator has called the 'thin edge of the wedge' argument, the opponents of assisted-suicide conjure up a parade of horribles and insist that the only way to halt the downward spiral is to stop it before it starts.
		"This [slippery slope] argument is singularly implausible if one who makes it means that there is a logical connection between the killings in question such that one who endorses the first cannot without inconsistency refuse to endorse the last.
		The fact that in one case a person is killed in his own interest because he requests it, whereas in the other a person is killed in the interest of others without (or contrary to) his consent, is surely a morally relevant difference.
	www.euthanasiaprocon.org /slipperyslope.html (1532 words)

	ALL THE WAY DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: GUN PROHIBITION IN ENGLAND AND SOME LESSONS FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES IN AMERICA
		Frederick Schauer's classic article on slippery slopes distinguishes the pure slippery slope argument[70] from its "close relation" that Schauer calls "the argument from excess breadth."[71] The latter argument points to the danger of adopting a policy on grounds that are too broad.
		This suggests that slippery slopes may be less dangerous when the right in question is supported by the press, as free speech and abortion rights are in the modern United States.
		Conversely, slippery slopes may be more dangerous when the press is indifferent, as in the case of federalism and states' rights, or actively hostile, as in the case of gun rights.
	www.guncite.com /journals/okslip.html (19135 words)

	Slippery Slope (Site not responding. Last check: )
		In order to show that a proposition is unacceptable, a sequence of increasingly unacceptable events is claimed to follow from it.
		A slippery slope is an illegitimate compositing of the"if- then" operator.
		The difference is that in a slippery slope fallacy the intermediate causal connections are unproven.
	www.goodart.org /ss.htm (192 words)

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