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What's Wrong with Slippery

Slope Arguments?
a
TRUDY GOVIER
a
Trent University
Published online: 01 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: TRUDY GOVIER (1982) What's Wrong with Slippery Slope
Arguments?, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 12:2, 303-316

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00455091.1982.10715799

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 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Volume XII, Number 2, june 1982

What's Wrong with Slippery Slope

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Arguments?

TRUDY GOVIER, Trent University

Slippery slope arguments are commonly thought to be fallacious. But is

there a single fallacy which they all commit? A study of applied logic
texts reveals competing diagnoses of the supposed error, and several re-
cent authors take slippery slope arguments seriously. 1 Clearly, there is
room for comment. I shall give evidence of divergence on the question
of what sort of argument constitutes a slippery slope, distinguish four
different types of argument which have all been deemed to be slippery
slopes, and contend that two of these types need involve no logical er-
ror.
We find in textbook accounts three quite differently oriented
treatments of slippery slope: conceptual - relating to vagueness and
the ancient sorites paradox; precedential - relating to the need to treat
similar cases consistently; and causal - relating to the avoidance of ac-
tions which will, or would be likely to, set off a series of undersirable
events.

1 Cf. Yale Kamisar, 'Against Euthanasia,' in R. Abelson and M.L. Friquegnon, eds.
Ethics for Modem Life; Sissela Bok, Lying; and Gregory Trianosky, 'Rule
Utilitarianism and the Slippery Slope,' journal of Philosophy, 1978

303
 Trudy Govier

The first approach may be found in Scriven, Thomas, Fogelin, and

Dames. 2 I shall take Scriven's account as representative. He says that
slippery slope arguments exploit vagueness and are similar in type to the
old 'bald man' argument, which culminates in the inference that 'since
adding one hair never makes the difference between people's being
bald and not being bald, there isn't really any difference between being
bald and not being bald.'3 As more serious examples, Scriven mentions
the difference between the interrogation and the physical torture of
suspected criminals. Though these actions could be argued to differ on-
ly by degrees, it would, he says, clearly be a mistake to infer that there is
no important difference between them. Differences of degree can
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cumulate to be significant.
An analysis stressing consistency of reasoning, or precedence, is
found in Beardsley and in Gilbert. 4 Beardsley says that slippery slope
arguments are a variation on the black and white fallacy. In slippery
slope, the basic idea is that a reason which serves to justify one in doing
a first action will serve to justify further actions. But in many cases, these
further actions will be unacceptable, and the fact the consistency would
seem to demand their allowability is good reason not to perform the first
action. On this account, slippery slope arguments would be those
'similarity of reasons' arguments in which there is a false precedent rela-
tionship alleged, since cases really differ in ways relevant to the deci-
sions at hand. Unfortunately, Beardsley's examples do not really con-
form to his abstract description. He offers:

.... We must not give the students what they ask for, when they ask for it; that
would set a dangerous precedent. Once we gave in on the Admissions policy,
they would propose changes in the curriculum and the course schedules, and
we would have to negotiate and compromise on that. They might then ask for
students to serve on faculty committees and on the Board of Trustees, and we
could not consistently deny this, since we would have in effect conceded their
right to make demands. What if they then came to dominate the University,
and determine what is taught and who is hired? The ultimate consequence is
too horrible to contemplate; the only logical policy is to stop at the beginning,
and refuse all demands.' (My emphasis)

2 Scriven, Reasoning, 117; S.N. Thomas, Practical Reasoning in Natural language,

204-51; Robert J. Fogel in, Understanding Arguments, 77-81; and T. Edward
Dames, Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 37-9

3 Scriven, 117

4 Beardsley, Thinking Straight 4th. edn., 146-50; Gilbert, M.A., How to Win an
Argument, 98-104
5 Beardsley, 151-2. In Beardsley's end-of-chapter exercises, examples #3 and #5
both mix empirical considerations with conceptual ones.

304
 What's Wrong With Slippery Slope Arguments?

This example, unlike Beardsley's analysis, relies upon empirical con-

siderations as well as on the demand for consistency; my underlinings
are intended to bring out this point.
R.H. Johnson and J.A. Blair offer a causal diagnosis of slippery slope.
In Logical Self-Defence they distinguish between arguments depending
upon causally grounded predictions, and arguments based upon
similarities between cases under consideration (precedence). 6 In both
cases, mistakes of reasoning are possible; on their view, it is only in the
causal context the slippery slope fallacy may be committed. If a con-
templated action is unjustifiably alleged to have a series of farflung
undesirable effects and argued, on that ground, to be unacceptable,
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then the slippery slope fallacy has been committed. A mistaken argu-
ment from precedent, on the other hand, is a faulty analogy. Johnson
and Blair offer several examples, one of which is the following argument
against the mandatory use of seat belts in automobiles:

If they can make us swallow this infringement of personal rights, whars next? A
seat belt law for the bedroom, so we won't fall out of bed and hurt our little
selves? Boy when Big Brother watches us, he really watches us, doesn't he?'

Here, as in Beardsley, diagnosis and example are at odds; for the argu-
ment cited does not seem to be a causal one at all. The author, surely, is
not in any sense suggesting that seat belt legislation will cause the
regulation of bedroom behavior.
Asked to pick out slippery slope arguments, philosophers would pro-
bably agree on a broad range of cases; these, however, are not entirely
conceptual, nor entirely precedential, nor entirely causal. They tend, as
in Beardsley and Johnson and Blair, to combine these aspects. Perelman
and Olbrechts-Tyteca show an awareness of this in The New Rhetoric;
they discuss 'the argument of direction' which is of the slippery slope
type. It is one of precedence and consistency, implying a causal connec-
tion between stages of decision-making; yet they relate the matter to the
classical sorites.

The argument of direction consists, essentially, in guarding against the use of

the device of stages: if you give this time, you will have to give in a little more
next time, and heaven knows where you will stop. This argument is used fre-
quently in negotiations between states and between representatives of
management and workers when a party does not want to seem to yield to

6 Logical Self-Defense, 163-9

7 Ibid., 165

305
 Trudy Govier

force, threats, or blackmaii. ... The argument of direction, conjuring up the slip-
pery slope or the toe over the threshold, insinuates that there can be no stopp-
ing on the way. 8

After discussing a number of variations on the 'argument of direction,'

these authors add a reference to sorites.

Finally there are a number of variations of the argument of direction which lay
stress on the change of nature between the first stage and the conclusion. The
typical example of this is the sorites of the Greeks in which the step from a pile
of wheat to a pile minus one grain, continuously repeated, ends in the nonex-
istence of the heap. 9
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Similarly, jonathan Glover shows an awareness of the differences

between arguments which have been classified as slippery slopes when,
in Causing Death and Saving Lives, he distinguishes between empirical
and logical slopes. 10 Glover, discussing abortion, refers to the common
objection that abortion is morally impermissible because of a connec-
tion which exists between it and infanticide. This connection may be
alleged as empirical (the prevalence of abortion will cause the
prevalence of infanticide) or as logical (there is no non-arbitrary way of
drawing the line between abortion and infanticide). Glover
distinguishes the arguments and rejects both. However, he gives the
empirical argument serious consideration and does not dismiss it as a
fallacy.
There is a parallelling of this split in recent philosophical literature;
joel Rudinow, in Analysis, discusses a conceptual slope, while Gregory
Trianosky, in the journal of Philosophy, takes slippery slope arguments
to be empirical. 11
In their explanations of the slippery slope fallacy, philosophers have
diagnosed it as one of faulty reasoning about differences of degree, of faulty
comparison of cases which are not relevantly different, and of sloppy
causal reasoning. In examples cited, we find questions about where to

8 Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: a Treatise on

Argumentation, trans!. by j. Wilkinson and P. Weaver (Notre Dame, lnd: Univer-
sity of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 283

9 Ibid., 286

10 jonathan Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (London: Penguin Books
1977), 165-8

11 Gregory Trianosky, 'Rule Utilitarianism and the Slippery Slope,' journal of

Philosophy, 1978; joel Rudinow, 'On "The Slippery Slope"', Analysis, 1974

306
 What's Wrong With Slippery Slope Arguments?

draw the line, demands for consistency, and allegations as to what will
ultimately result from a contemplated action. As bases for the explana-
tion of what is supposed to be a single fallacy, these exceed what shold
be necessary. Furthermore, there is no obvious sophistry or
unreasonableness in demanding a justification for the drawing of lines
where they are drawn; in demanding that people be consistent in their
reasoning; in arguing against a decision because it will set a bad prece-
dent; or in arguing that an action should not be performed because it
will have deleterious consequences. Where, then, lies the fallacy of slip-
pery slope?
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Drawing Lines on Conceptual Slopes: The Sorites Problem

When does a man become bald? When does gray shade into black? At
what point does an accumulation of grains of wheat become a heap?
Because every height is obtainable by adding a small amount to the
height of a very short person, are we all 'really' short? Such questions
have puzzled logicians since the days of Aristotle, though to non-
logicians they appear mere quibbles. They can lead to fallacious reason-
ing, as when one argues that since no one hair can make a difference
between bald and non-bald, all men are really bald. This is what I shall
call a fallacy of assimilation. 12 To infer that differences of degree cannot
cumulate into a significant difference simply on the grounds that they
are differences of degree is mistaken. Even though there is a continuous
progression of heights from four feet to seven feet, and even though we
could not locate which eighth of an inch interval on the graph from four
feet to seven feet makes the difference between short and not short,
there is nevertheless a significant difference in height between someone
of four feet and someone of seven feet. The first is short; the second tall.
Differences of degree though separately minute and insignificant, may
cumulate to be significant. Anyone who infers from their separate
minuteness and insignificance, their collective insignificance, makes a
logical mistake. Consider:

A. Birth is a morally insignificant event in the history of the born individual. As far
as personhood and entitlement to treatment from the moral point of view are
concerned, birth, which for the baby is a mere change of environment, is no
more significant than the first birthday. But once birth has been demythologiz-

12 I am indebted here to Max Black's 'Reasoning with Loose Concepts,' in Models of

Precision (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1970).

307
 Trudy Govier

ed, as well it should be, we are on the slippery slope. For no particular point
between birth and conception is a point at which the person/non-person
distinction can be non-arbirtrarily located, because the differences in develop-
ment between any two successive intrauterine points are so unimpressive.
Consequently, we are forced to locate the beginning of human life at the point
of conception."

The fallacy of assimilation may be represented as follows:

Type 1: Fallacy of Assimilation

1. Case (a) is P.
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2. Cases (b) - (n) form a series differing initially from (a) and then
from each other, only by x.

3. Considered in itself, each difference of amount x is insignifi-

cant.

Therefore:

4. There is no difference between (a) and (b) - (n) with respect

to P; all are equally P.

Logicians have not been interested in sorites primarily for its

possibilities for generating fallacious assimilations. What has traditional-
ly interested them is its revelation of the imprecise boundaries for the
application of terms in ordinary language, and the prospect that this im-
precision may leave truth value gaps. Whether vagueness does or does
not generate truth value gaps and how such gaps, once postulated,
should be handled by logical theory, are not issues which I can presume
to treat here. In any case, their resolution is not required for the ex-
planation of that fallacy of assimilation which some have called 'slippery
slope.'
One can add a hair at a time to the head of a hairless man, an eighth
of an inch at a time to the short man, a grain at a time to the wheat ... at
no obvious point is there a sharp cut-off in these series. And yet, I have
said that it is a fallacy to infer that all cases within such series are the
same. Where do we draw the line? Most often, lines are drawn for some
purpose; then the defense of drawing the line at one place rather than
another can proceed with reference to this purpose, and to pertinent

13 Rudinow, 173-4

308
 What's Wrong With Slippery Slope Arguments?

empirical considerations. With reference to a given purpose, significant

differences emerge from a spectrum. The fact of a conceptual spectrum
where particular cases would proceed by degrees from black to white,
from bald to non-bald, or from short to tall, does not imply that all cases
spectrally arrangeable are equivalent. Nor does the debatability of any
one proposal for drawing a line along the spectrum entail that a line
cannot reasonably be drawn somewhere along it.

Consistency and Dangerous Precedent Arguments

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When an action or decision is criticized on the grounds that it will set a

bad precedent, what is primarily at stake is the universalizability of
reasons. If it is in virtue of the presence of a factor, F, that it is correct to
do (a), then the presence ofF in a further case, (b), should, other things
being equal, make it correct to do (b). Consistency requires that similar
cases be treated similarly. In this way, cases are connected; people, sen-
sing this, often argue that a particular case (a), though innocuous in
itself, is nevertheless not acceptable because it would set a precedent
for (b), or for further cases in which F is present, but which are never-
theless unacceptable.
Consider:

B. We know that your budget submission is late, due to the sudden death of your
husband. Nevertheless we should not increase your budget as a result of this
after-deadline submission. If we did, we would be bound in consistency to
consider all the other late submissions as well, and we would have to accept
late applications from others, some of whom are just lazy or disorganized.
Your case is worthy, but cannot be allowed because it would set a bad prece-
dent, binding us to take other applications from people who are late without
the good excuse you have.

(B) is a transparently bad argument, which may be schematically

represented as follows:

Type II (a) - Simple Dangerous Precedent

1. Case (a) is acceptable when considered solely on its own

merits.

2. Cases (b) and (c) and ... (n) are not acceptable.

3. Feature F, in virtue of which (a) is acceptable, is also possessed

by (b), (c), and (n).

309
 Trudy Govier

4. By permitting (a), we would bind ourselves in consistency to

permitting (b) to (n). That is, (a), though acceptable on its own,
is unacceptable overall, insofar as it sets a dangerous prece-
dent.

5. Therefore, (a) ought not to be accepted.

It is easy to see that any argument of this type is necessarily unsound,

for premises (1), (2), and (4) imply an inconsistency. Given that (a) is ac-
ceptable when considered on its own merits, and that (b) - (n) are not,
there must be some pertinent difference between (a) and these subse-
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quent cases. Yet (4), in stating that (a) would bind one, in consistency, to
accepting the further cases, presumes that the cases are relevantly
similar. If (a) is acceptable and the others are not, then there must be a
relevant difference between them, and this difference may be cited by
anyone who, having permitted (a), comes under permission to grant (b)
- (n) also. This being so, (a) need not set a bad precedent. Arguments
from dangerous precedent which are of the type II (a) are necessarily
unsound, since the first two premises imply that there is a relevant dif-
ference between the considered cases, while the fourth premise implies
that there is no such difference.
As set forward here, arguments of the simple dangerous precedent
type cont<!in no reference to any empirical considerations about
people's expectations or their capacity to differentiate between
relevantly different cases. Were we to combine considerations of con-
sistency and precedence with these psychological factors, we would
have a different type of argument; this more complicated type will be
discussed below.
Precedent arguments may be supplemented in another way, in
which considerations of consistency of treatment are combined with
considerations of feasibility. 14 Thus:

C. Allowing French parents to choose to send their children to French language

schools which would have public support would be a precedent for allowing
parents of Indian, Ukrainian, German and many other language groups to do
the same thing. The public pocket could not support this. Even though the
French language has a special place in the founding act of our country, and the
French people are in a historical position which would justify their receiving
schooling in French, we cannot permit French parents public funding for
French schools. To do this would be to commit ourselves to parental choice
for parents of the other language groups here, but that is simply impractical.

14 I owe my awareness of this type of argument from precedence to Professor

Robert Pinto, Department of Philosophy, University of Windsor.

310
 What's Wrong With Slippery Slope Arguments?

There is not sufficient funding for all deserving groups. And this being the case,
we should not single out one group and give that group the privilege.

Argument (C) is something like (B), for it grants that the initial case is a
deserving one, considered on its own. However, this argument does not
claim that the other cases are undeserving or unacceptable, in
themselves; it thus avoids the inconsistency of (B). The point of (C) is
that the cumulative effect of allowing a number of cases, each of which
might be deserving and legitimate when considered separately, is
overload.
Argument (C) is of the type:
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Type II (b) - Feasibility Precedent

1. Case (a) is acceptable, considered by itself.

2. Cases (b) - (n) are relevantly similar to (a) and are also accep-
table, considered separately.

3. Allowing all of (a) - (n) is impossible.

4. Case (a), if allowed would be a precedent for (b) - (n).

5. Therefore, case (a) ought not to be allowed.

Arguments of this type avoid the necessary unsoundness of (B). Still

they are open to criticism, in that it seems arbitrary not to permit (a), in
particular. If there are many deserving cases, not all of which can be
allowed for reasons of feasibility, then surely the best thing to do would
be to allow some of the cases, as many as are feasible. The selection of
which cases are to be allowed might be made on various grounds or
even, if all else failed, by a lottery principle. It would not necessarily be
arbitrary or inconsistent to permit some cases while disallowing others,
if all cases are equally deserving but not all can be allowed together. One
would justify such an administrative policy by appealing to the selection
procedure necessitated by the situation.
The Feasibility Precedent argument does not suffice to justify its con-
clusion, for the reasons given do not warrant singling out any specific
case to be rejected. No sufficient reason is given for not allowing the
case (a), which is admitted to be acceptable, considered on its own
merits. Thus Types II (a) and II (b) both contain logical mistakes - the
second more subtle than the first.

311
 Trudy Govier

Tumbling Down A Causal Slope

As was noted in the background material, many arguments which ap-

plied logicians and others have dubbed 'slippery slope' have empirical
elements. In the interests of clarity, I shall first consider arguments
which are purely predictive and causal, containing no 'sorites' or 'prece-
dent' considerations. One example of this type is:

(D) .... the greatness of this country stems from the industriousness of its people.
The guaranteed minimum income will destroy that by eliminating incentive.
This, in turn, will put more people on the dole, which will further weaken the
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work force and increase the burden on the taxpayer. As the burden on the
working taxpayer increases, he will become more and more discouraged until
he finally quits and joins his fellows on the dole. 15

Here, the apparently desirable policy of guaranteeing a mm1mum in-

come is criticized on the grounds that it will set off a causal sequence
ending in an undesirable effect. The type is:

Type Ill - Causal Series

1. Action (a) is prima facie acceptable.

2. Action (a) would, if performed, cause the occurrence of

events e 1, e2 , ..• en. 1 &

3. It is not desirable that the series of events e 1 ... en occur.

4. Therefore, action (a) should not be undertaken.

Some arguments of this type bear a confusing resemblance to

precedence arguments like (C) and (B). The resemblance is often due to
the presence of such expressions as 'where will all this lead?', 'what will
the next step be?' and 'how are we to draw the line?', for these expres-
sions are open to both causal and non-causal interpretations.
If an argument really is of the purely causal type, it requires little
comment here. Granted that the sequence will occur (or is likely to oc-

15 Example from Gilbert, 103.

16 For'would if performed' one might sometimes find 'would risk, if performed'; i.e.
the consideration might be that if (a) is performed there is a significant risk of e 1 ,
... en· What I have to say about Type Ill would equally well apply if this substitu-
tion were made.

312
 What's Wrong With Slippery Slope Arguments?

cur) and that it is undesirable, there is good reason not to undertake the
considered action (a). How good? That depends on one's moral theory.
There is nothing wrong, in principle, with arguments of this type,
though many may be found which are based on entirely unwarranted
empirical claims. Probably, (D) is. It was once argued that 'unbridled
passion following the wake of birth control would create a useless and
effeminate society, or worse, result in the complete extinction of the
human race.'17 This is a bad argument, but it is bad because the causal
premise is without foundation; mistakes here are of substance, rather
than of principle.
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Mixed Cases: The Real Slippery Slopes

Some arguments combine elements of sorites-style assimilation, reason-

ing from precedent, and causal reasoning in ways which can be difficult
to sort out precisely. Sissela Bok's recent book, Lying, provides several
interesting arguments of this type. For instance:

(E) The slope here is very slippery indeed. For if some lies in court to protect a
clienfs confidences are all right, why not others? If the lawyer is sole judge of
what is a tolerable lie, what criteria will he use? Will there not be a pressure to
include other lies, ostensibly also to protect the clienfs confidence? And, if
lawyers become used to accepting certain lies, how will this affect their integri-
ty in other areas? 18

This argument moves from the assimilability of various lies to the

psychological claim that they will be assimilated, to the causal claim that
many lies would resu It from the permission of the first protective lie; and
hence to the conclusion that the first protective lie - a lawyer's lie in
court to protect his client - ought not to be permitted.
An argument similar in type is the following by Yale Kamisar, on the
topic of voluntary euthanasia:

(F) ... is it any more of a jump from the incurably and painfully ill to the unor·
thodox political thinker than it is from the hopelessly defective infant to the
same 'unsavory character'?

17 Reported in a review of a book entitled Dear Dr. Stopes, by judith Finlayson, in

the Globe and Mail for january 13, 1979.

18 Bok, 173

313
 Trudy Govier

... It is true that the 'wedge' objection can always be advanced, the horror can
always be paraded. But it is no less true that, on occasions, the objections are
much more valid than on others. One reason why the 'parade of horrors' can-
not be too lightly dismissed in this particular instance is that Miss Voluntary
Euthanasia is not likely to be going it alone for very long. Many of her ad-
mirers, as I have endeavored to show in the preceding section, would be
neither surprised nor distressed to see her joined by Miss Euthanatize the Con-
genital Idiots and Miss Euthanatize the Senile Dementia .

... Another reason why the 'parade of horrors' argument cannot be too lightly
dismissed in this particular instance, it seems to me, is that the parade has
taken place in our time and the order to procession has been headed by the
killing of the 'incurables' and the 'useless.''"
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In the article from which this argument has been excerpted, Kamisar
grants that the legalization of voluntary euthanasia would, in itself, be a
good thing. However, he says, voluntary euthanasia is too easily
assimilable to involuntary euthanasia and the termination of those who
are 'useless' or a 'nuisance.' Since people will assimilate these practices,
permitting voluntary euthanasia will lead to these other horrors. Kamisar
defends the plausibility of this empirical claim with reference to the case
of Nazi Germany.
Now arguments like these are not obviously fallacious. Indeed,
Gregory Trianosky has recently argued that it is a fault in standard for-
mulations of rule utilitarianism that they 'cannot properly take into ac-
count the force of bona fide arguments of the slippery slope genre.' Of
such arguments, he says:

... the situation they envisage is an inevitable and progressive deterioration of

motivations and inhibitions- a slide pell-mell down the slippery slope- once
we take the first step by releasing our hold on a strict moral code and accep-
ting instead some weaker set of moral rules and prohibitions. 20

Trianosky stresses the psychological component of slippery slope

arguments, seeing them as dependent on the claim that our attitudes
and motivations are interdependent and too clumsy to be subject-
specific.
The general line taken in the arguments of Bok and Kamisar is that
because people tend to assimilate cases which are arrangeable on a
conceptual spectrum, the permission of what is prima facie a good thing
will be catastrophic, or at least risky. Some actions should not be under-

19 Yale Kamisar, 'Against Euthanasia.'

20 Trianosky, 414

314
 What's Wrong With Slippery Slope Arguments?

taken, even though they are prima facie desirable, for small differences
between comparable actions make them easily assimilable and, people
being as they are, these actions are likely to be taken as precedents for
less desirable ones in such a way that the initial step will cause a
deteriorating sequence of events. If there is a fallacy in this type of
reasoning, it is not immediately obvious what that fallacy is.
The mixed argument, which I take to be the classic slippery slope, is
of the following general type:

Type IV
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1. Case (a) is prima facie acceptable.

2. Cases (b), (c) ... (n) are unacceptable.

3. Cases (a) ... (n) are assimilable, as they differ from each other
only by degrees, and are arrangeable as a spectrum of cases.

4. As a matter of psychological fact, people are likely to

assimilate cases (a) - (n).

5. Case (a), if permitted, will be taken as a precedent for the

others, (b) - (n).

6. Permitting (a) will cause the permission of (b) - (n).

7. Case (a) should therefore not be permitted.

Obviously, step (4) is crucial to the argument. Without it, one would
have to commit both a fallacy of assimilation and a mistake of relevance
(often smuggled in through equivocation in such phrases as 'the next
step' and 'where will this take us') in order to reach step (6) from steps (1)
to (3).
As set out in Type IV, the slippery slope argument does contain a
number of steps which present opportunities for common logical errors.
People easily assimilate cases which are distinguishable and they often
reason, fallaciously, that because differences cumulate only gradually,
they do not exist at all. Or, they ignore pertinent differences between
cases and, doing this, allege that an acceptable case is a precedent for
an unacceptable one. These mistakes, of assimilation and procedence,
can easily be made on the basis of the information of premises (1 ), (2),
and (3). Also, people who oppose changes may, either wittingly or un-
wittingly, conjure up a series of undesirable effects to attach to a con-
templated action, using the projected series to prohibit reform. Step (6)

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may be without empirical foundation - mere scare tactics. Unclarity,

due to wording, as to whether it is indeed an empirical, causal, claim
which is being made can disguise the groundlessness of such claims.
It may seem plausible that 'voluntary euthanasia is the first step
toward the murder of the unfit' but equivocation disguises inadequacy
for many such statements. If the allegation is that there is no significant
logical or moral difference between voluntary euthanasia and the
murder of the unfit, then that is simply false. If it means that legalizing
voluntary euthanasia will, in and by itself, cause the legalization of
murdering the unfit, well that does not seem very probable. The use, in
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many arguments, of such expressions as 'a step towards,' 'sets the scene
for,' and 'we will be hardpressed to draw the line', can blur important
distinctions.
None of the errors chronicled here need be made, however, in
arguments of Type IV. The schema for Type IV should make this clear.
Conceptual and causal stages of the argument are clearly distinguished,
requiring connection through the psychological claim made in the
fourth step. A complete and careful argument of this type can avoid the
pitfalls of fallacious assimilation, mistaken use of precedent, and unwar-
ranted cause. The arguer need not himself ascribe to any faulty linkage
of cases; he asserts that people are in fact inclined to group cases
together and that, because of this psychological fact, the acceptance of
an initial case will lead to the acceptance of a series of further
undesirable cases. A slippery slope argument can be a good argument.
When it is, it is a legitimate consequentialist argument against a course
of action. If all of its premises are warranted, the argument presents an
important reason not to undertake a course of action which would have
otherwise seemed quite acceptable. Whether or not the slippery slope
is a conclusive argument in such cases is a moral question about the
force of consequential considerations in moral reasoning.
I conclude that slippery slope arguments may contain many mistakes
but need not, as such, contain any.

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