Actual Discussion

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(Open-Ended) I feel like "slippery slope" isn't actually a logical fallacy, people just use that as an excuse to dismiss valid concerns. You? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by John_McMurray@lemmy.ca to c/actual_discussion@lemmy.ca

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[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

First you begin by positing that “slippery slope” isn’t a fallacy, and before you know it, the camel is in the tent and eating your grapes.

While I’m not concerned about camels eating MY grapes, it’s true that they’ll happily eat grapes if given the chance.

Which side do you think is having their valid concerns dismissed? How do you know they’re valid?

[–] John_McMurray@lemmy.ca -5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Someone's fishing for political opinions. Anyways, how I know if they're valid or not is by considering their logic and likelihood, not just dismissing an opposing view as "slippery slope" and moving on.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah; in that case the fallacy is reductionism. Slippery slope is the excuse.

[+] John_McMurray@lemmy.ca -8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm starting to feel like you're exactly who I had in mind, knows the names of all the logical fallacies but lacks a real understanding of the concepts, just uses them as dismissive magic wands

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Ah, then you didn’t get what I was doing with my response.

The thing about actual fallacies is that they are about flawed logic. If a fallacy is being used, that means the conclusion is not actually warranted by the evidence and logic.

It says nothing about whether the conclusion is true, just that the path taken to arrive at the conclusion is flawed and not worthy of further consideration.

So when someone names a fallacy to dismiss what someone is saying, they’re not arguing that the person’s stance is wrong and doesn’t deserve further consideration, they’re arguing that the person’s logic to arrive there is flawed and does not deserve further consideration.

Slippery slope is a fallacy because it argues that if certain steps are taken, others will inevitably follow that wouldn’t follow if the first steps were never taken.

So “it’s a slippery slope from playing violent video games to mass murdering your friends and family” is the fallacy; “it’s a slippery slope from taking fentanyl to becoming an addict” is not.

[–] John_McMurray@lemmy.ca -1 points 3 months ago

That's kinda what I mean, often the scenario isn't a logical fallacy at all, but people who basically misunderstand the concept just bleat it out regardless.

[–] AceTKen@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

So... it isn't ALWAYS a fallacy. In its purest, a slippery-slope argument is of the following form:

“If A, which some people want, is done or allowed, then B, which most people don’t want, will inevitably follow. Therefore, let’s not do or allow A.”

The fallacy occurs when that form is not fleshed out by sufficient reasons to believe that B will inevitably follow from A, such as in the following examples:

“The US should put the Ten Commandments into schools. If they don't, then everyone will be worshipping Satan within a few generations."
“We’ve got to stop them from banning pornography. Once they ban one form of literature, they will never stop. Next thing you know, they will be banning all books!”

In these examples, the conclusion does not follow deductively from the premise. Nor is any reason given to believe that a chain of events set in motion by the act described in the premise will inevitably lead to what’s described in the conclusion. Heck, the above examples are not even good inductive logic.

So you're absolutely correct in saying that not all slippery-slope arguments are fallacies, it just takes logic in between, and that's something a lot of people struggle with.