This has always bothered me, because I can think of instance where bad behaviors can definetly lead to worst behaviors. The classic, if you smoke pot you’ll use harder drugs, is clearly not true in itself. Weed doesn’t cause you to want to do harder drugs, but since weed is illegal in a lot of places, it could expose you to hard drugs and you could become a user. I understand that this is not always the case, but I’d like to better understand why this is considered a fallacy when it could be true sometimes.
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By your own explanation it’s only true sometimes. Likely due to some coincidence or some other factors. If something is only true sometimes then it’s a poor argument.
It makes assumptions without providing any evidence to support those assumptions.
It is not an argument as much as it is a deflection.
Because they don’t always (or even most of the time) lead to the worse possible scenario. Often the Slippery slope is used to say only one (highly unlikely) possibility will result from the first action. Perhaps my favorite example was one that was used against same-sex marriage before it went legal. The argument went something like this: “If we let people of the same sex marry, that destroys the institution of marriage itself. If it happens, next people will want to marry immediate family members, and then people will be want to marry animals. We can’t let that happen so, same-sex marriage must remain illegal.”
You answered it in your question. The problem with the slippery slope argument is it’s framed as x ***will*** lead to y. It’s one thing to say x may increase the chances of y. It’s another to say if x happens it’s only a matter of time y does and then z not much longer.
You explained in your own example why it’s a bad argument. Context is very important when it comes to predicting human behavior and slippery slopes don’t take context into account.
From your example alone, we actually know that smoking cigarettes is more highly correlated with hard drug use at this point in time than marijuana use, but that wasn’t true in the 60s. It seems to be more about perceived risk than about exposure to legal vs. illegal drugs, just as an example for where the whole slippery slope doesn’t work.
Take another common one:
If we make same sex marriage people legal everyone will want to marry their pets/tractors etc! Except the direction that sex/relationship norms is moving is TOWARDS more consent based relationship (away from child marriage etc) so since tractors and dogs can’t consent….probably not gonna happen.
Logic wants proven cause effect relationships.
It is a fallacy when you do not actually show why X is sufficiently likely to lead to Y and Z to be concerned about them. That is, you’re not really arguing against X, but are distracting with a trivial argument against Y and Z.
I need a car for work. One thing leads to another, and soon enough I’ll have five cars and be super in debt. Thus, I should not buy a car.
That’s a clearly absurd application of the argument. Such absurdity shows that the logic is invalid through argumentum ad absurdum.
Fundamentally, A argument (legit ones) require proof and logical deduction.
Slippery slopes USUALLY rely on assumption.
While doing weed = illegal = more likely to commit other illegal act seems legit at first glance, IT IS BASING it’s legitmacy on 1 single prospect, and then making more assumptions. You simply don’t do this. Just like how you don’t see a person being late once and conclude he have trouble keeping time and thus is a unreliable person.
A Slippery slope requires multiple stages and multiple assumptions, where A->B and B->C and C->D thus A->D. We know A =/= D, there is 0 correlation or causation but because you look at the flow of thought thinking “huh it has a point” thus you believe in this false statement. This is why fallacy are so powerful, not just because they are wrong, but because they can seem legit.
So from what I gather is it’s not a slippery slope if you got evidence, and if your not stating it as absolute fact.
You can’t base an argument on the worst possible outcome that you can imagine.
>Slippery slope: I you have a baby, that baby could grow up to be the next Hitler, and then that baby starts World War Four, and then that war destroys the whole human race. Ergo, we have to murder your baby.
Is any of that a proven outcome? No. There is no evidence to support any of the escalating threats in the hypothetical scenario.
If you have **proof** of a negative outcome (say you have proof that a certain percentage of marijuana users become IV drug users) then it’s supported by evidence you can cite, and is no longer a fearmongering slippery slope
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