On slipperyslopeism

So this applies to politics, probably religion, and probably whatever else. In other words, it's a general thing. You will often read or hear the following argument: "If you can do x, then what's the difference between x and y." Well I think maybe it's a boring argument, and it means that reality is more complicated and nuanced than some people like to think. Maybe some things are simple, but many are not

Lately, I've been doing a number of these random 2 card Tarot draws each day. No real questions, just letting it show me something

So the draw I got earlier today was a reversed justice card, and then a reversed ace of cups, read from left to right. So one way of interpreting that, is if a society has bad rules, the culture suffers. The ace of cups, you see, is a picture of a city, which may represent the culture as opposed to the individual.

When you reverse the justice card, the rules become ineffective. I think a reversed justice card might represent an attempt at 'perfection,' which is where slipperyslopeism comes in. And you can see this, because on the justice card, her dog probably chewed out part of her chair, for instance, and her clothes seem like they don't match. And yet, this represents the '8,' which is a rather disciplined and complete number

This is something tricky, because there are both valid and invalid cases of slippery slope arguments.

Precedent really is a thing. There are plenty of settings allowing something now means that you'll be forced to allow similar things in future.

Unforeseen consequences are also a thing. Actions we take for one purpose can make us vulnerable to threats we didn't initially anticipate.

A slippery slope argument is only fallacious when the chain of reasoning behind it doesn't make sense.

Blowing all my money on Fabergé eggs would mean I couldn't pay my mortgage and might end up with me homeless. It probably wouldn't mean I'll be guillotined by sans culottes who are outraged by my ostentatious display of wealth and spark a new French Revolution.

ideogenous_mover said:

So this applies to politics, probably religion, and probably whatever else. In other words, it's a general thing. You will often read or hear the following argument: "If you can do x, then what's the difference between x and y." Well I think maybe it's a boring argument, and it means that reality is more complicated and nuanced than some people like to think. Maybe some things are simple, but many are not

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I see it more in terms of the idea that "if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile."

Stevicus said:

I see it more in terms of the idea that "if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile."

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Yeah... and that's valid or invalid depending on the circumstance.

What's often quite valid is the idea that "if you give them an inch, you'll have to keep giving inches because they'll be like 'hey - you gave me an inch last time' and 'you gave that guy an inch so I want an inch, too.'"

9-10ths_Penguin said:

A slippery slope argument is only fallacious when the chain of reasoning behind it doesn't make sense.

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Well I think maybe what it does, is ignore two things:
1: the context, which is going to be often complicated and nuanced.
2: the interplay of forces and work between individual and collective authority.

So if either of those two things can get sufficiently put aside, the case for any kind of slippery slope seems automatically to become viable. A chain of reasoning, of any kind, can have a far easier time thriving if complications are done away with