Having exhausted a couple of the more obvious examples of arguments that aren’t arguments at all (see posts 1, 2), I thought I’d try my hand at a trickier argument that does the rounds from time to time: the infamous slippery slope.
Is it really like the detergent-doused sheet of plastic that my brother-in-law unfurled down the hill last summer for the kids? Once you step on at the top, is it inevitable that you’ll get grass burn when you slide off at the bottom?
There are three problems with the slippery slope. Firstly, it ignores reality. For better or worse, most people are hopelessly inconsistent when it comes to constructing their worldview. This means that, almost magically, in spite of the sliminess of the slope, many people stop somewhere before the bottom.
Let’s take ethicist Peter Singer as the example. According to his ethic, someone is a person only inasmuch as they possess the ability to make decisions and to suffer. On this account, people with certain disabilities and people with Alzheimer’s (and even newborn babies) aren’t so human that killing them would constitute murder. In fact, in some cases, the greater good of society would be advanced by quietly shuffling them off this mortal coil. Of course, when his own mother suffered from dementia, Singer paid for her to be nursed until she died naturally. For all the clarity of his arguments, he ends up in fundamental contradiction.
What does all of this mean for the slippery slope? Well, Singer has gone about as far as anyone has gone in pointing out the logical consequences of a humanist ethic. But as he has done so, all sorts of people who have agreed with the foundations of his argument have balked at the conclusions. There is indeed a slippery slope here: if you start with Singer’s premises, you should logically reach his conclusions. But around the world, you’ll meet millions of people who start where he starts, but who stop arbitrarily at all sorts of points down the slope. The slope looked slippery, but for whatever reason (revulsion, compassion or just plain lack of courage), people stop short of the bottom-bruising end of the ride.
This reveals the second problem: if you point out the slippery slope to Fred, and then Fred steps on the slope anyway, but then somehow manages to stop himself before the impending grass burn, then he’ll most likely turn to you and say, “See, you were wrong”. Fred will use the fact that the slippery slope didn’t end where you said it would to justify the rightness of his position—allowing him, at the same time, to sidestep his own inconsistency.
The third problem with the slippery slope is that it’s always possible to put your hand on Fred’s shoulder and point to that little tussock higher on the hill and the white rabbit frolicking lower down the hill, and suggest that he must be standing on a slope. Anyone with some imagination can construct a virtual slippery slope—even if you’re standing on the plain of truth. For example, we might both claim to believe in God’s sovereignty in predestining people to salvation in Christ. But you sense a disturbance in my doctrine. How can I say that the gospel must be preached by living, breathing human beings without introducing human effort into the work of God and therefore launching myself onto the slippery slope that ends in Arminianism, or worse (if there is anything worse for a Calvinist)? It’s even better than a mountain from a molehill; it’s a mountain from a pancake (which is as flat a thing as I can think of at the moment).
But here’s the final problem: sometimes the slippery slope is actually true. Sometimes decisions we make entail certain other commitments. Nobody knew when Roe and Wade were duking it out in the ’70s that they were talking about the legitimacy of embryonic stem cell research, but they were. The decisions made there created a backdrop for the way that we think about human embryos, leading naturally to the conclusion that we could experiment on them.
My advice: beware the slippery slope. It’s a slimy argument that’s only sometimes true. So next time it’s employed against you, stop and study the slope. If, on closer examination, you find a one in two gradient constructed of grease-infused Teflon, run away very quickly. But if it’s garden variety concrete and you’ve got your rubber soled boots on, step firmly, proudly and unhurriedly onto the middle of the slope. You won’t be kept standing by the magic of inconsistency, but by the grip of the truth.
Paul,
I was reading an article elsewhere on inerrancy. In it, I was very struck by an alternative way of putting the argument that one thing is likely to lead to another – as a gateway through which many pass, rather than a slippery slope on which everyone falls down. Here’s the quote explaining…
Paul – is there a confusion of categories in how we are defining slippery slope situations?
So, it would seem to me that the Slippery Slope of Singer is not so much a slippery slope, but the logical conclusion of an argument. If you start of with that premise, you end up with that conclusion. Though of course, whether you implement that solution or not is a different issue. As he didn’t, it shows that either the premise is wrong, or there are other complicating factors.
However, another slippery slope argument is that the conclusion is not the logical conclusion, but where we will end up. An example may be allowing abortion for only the most extreme cases (rape, severe danger for the mother), but by allowing that outlying cases, we have moved down the slippery slope, and ended up with abortions for all on demand. The result is not the logical conclusion of the premise, but where we end up.
@Sandy, that is quite a helpful way of talking about it. Thanks.
@Mike, I don’t think I have confused categories. Either the original argument will lead naturally to the final conclusion or it won’t. In your abortion example, the reason that an argument to allow abortion in extreme cases ends up with abortion on demand is because of the basis of the argument.
For example, which extreme cases will you allow? Is an extreme case about the health of the mother or the health of the infant? If it’s the mother’s health, what constitutes health? If it’s the baby’s health, what constitutes health? The fact that you chose to form your arguments on the basis of these questions says something about the trajectory of the argument.
The way you frame the argument about extreme cases will end up determining what the final result will be. I would argue that you still end up with one sort of slippery slope argument.
For a slippery slope argument to be false, you need to be able to show why the premises of the argument don’t automatically result in the conclusions envisaged.
The reason we talk about slippery slope arguments is that the ‘ick’ factor for people means that they don’t believe that the basis for taking the first step will ultimately result in their lying at the bottom of the hill. Some arguments take decades to play out to their logical conclusion. But I would argue that the logical conclusion was there from the beginning.
I wonder if there are two other complicating factors of the slippery slope (aside from our dreadful – although in this case, perhaps relieving, too – tendency to be inconsistent):
First, my immoral (or even just unwise) decisions aren’t independent once offs. There is the sense (as in the abortion issue, for instance) in which ‘giving in’ on one decision doesn’t end the debate, but just shifts it along to the next issue. [I remember the Briefing talking about this very thing with regards to women’s ordination and gay ordination]. When repeated over time, we move to a place where we never dreamed of if we keep ‘giving in’ (such that Wade now opposes the very ruling she won).
But the thing that makes it more likely that I give in in subsequent times is that I didn’t just acquiesce to a decision, but implicitly consented to a different theology / worldview / ethic / etc in doing so. And that ethic, when generalised, is the very same principle that leads me to ‘cave’ on the subsequent decisions. And that’s what makes it a slope – because the decisions become related by an underlying ethic / principle that I find easier to adopt each time I assent to it.
Which brings in the second observation – that my immoral (or unwise) decisions are not neutral: they change me. In the case of misdeeds, my actions sear my conscience; they harden my heart and stiffen my neck – which again makes it more likely that I’ll cave the next time. Once I get a taste for sin, I find that I get enslaved to it.
I imagine most people in pastoral ministry (and those who are bold to corret their brothers and sisters) will at some time or other have pointed out where persistant unrepentance may lead. But the problem is, when they head down that path, ‘I told you so’ (said humbly!) never works as a rebuke – because the person no longer cares that they’ve ‘fallen away’: their minds have been changed by their actions, and actions by those changed minds, so on.
Another image would be of divergent paths … If I choose to go NE instead of E, after a few meters it’s not too hard to corret my path. But after 30 kms, the distance between where I am and where I should be is a lot larger – and so it’s easier to stay on my current trajectory rather than repent, which will mean a lot of bush-bashing to get back to the right path?
Finally, would James 1:13-15 be considered a ‘slippery slope’ argument?
@Paul – fair enough, sounds good to me.
@Mike and @Scott, I think that Scott’s post says what I was trying to say but more eloquently (the story of my life!)
In particular, his point about implicitly acquiescing to an alternate worldview is what I was trying to say when I said that the ultimate conclusion is entailed in the premise, it’s just that I didn’t want to admit it when I started the conversation.
Ooops, ‘conversation’ above should be ‘argument’
Paul,
I also note that the majority of denominations that have applied the “equal rights” approach to ordination of women have fairly consistently moved on to apply the same worldly logic to homosexual ordination also.
I believe there is a legitimate slippery slope argument when the logic applied to a less contentious issue can be equally applied to another more contentious issue. Particularly when the agenda of the “reformers” includes a mandate to apply the logic to all situations.
Some small, seemingly inocuous steps do change culture, shift the balance of power/authority, twist orthodoxy, set new standards of wisdom and values and so create momentum for greater changes.
Would Luther be an example? Would the Roman Catholics have been right to say, “It’s a slippery slope.”
Perhaps the problem with the slippery slope argument is that it is both irrelevant and it doesn’t work.
Irrelevant: We need to tackle every decision on the basis of whether it is right or wrong, wise or unwise here and now. If it is a good thing , do it. If it leads to a possibly bad thing, tackle that one then?
Doesn’t work: Even though the doomsayers were right (womens ordination does lead to all sorts of unrighteousness because people are refusing to deal with the Bible with integrity) No one listens and saying it makes you sound like a loon, even though you turn out to be right. You need to tackle each issue on it’s merits.
Michael Hutton
Ariah Park
@Michael, thanks for your thoughts. While conceding that it doesn’t work, my only question would be, is there a time to sound like a loon anyway?
Yes, but for the right reasons. I’d rather look like a loon because I stick to Biblical principles on this issue than because I’m so afraid of Z that I’ll block X and Y just in case.
I think what is really tricky is knowing when the slippery slope argument is valid and when it is productive.
Thanks for the articles, God Bless, Michael