"The left" and slippery slope arguments

[bascule]

While I generally support "the left", and to a certain extent the crazy left (a.k.a. the "far left"), I really, really, really hate slippery slope arguments.

 

They go a little somethin' like this... hit it!

 

"Domestic spying? Next thing you know we'll be under the rule of a FASCIST REGIME!"

 

"Patriot act? Next thing you know we'll be under the rule of MARTIAL LAW!"

 

"Bush? Next thing you know we'll be electing HITLER as our president"

 

etc. etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, the erosion of civil liberties piss me off. But please, don't use that to paint some fantasy scenario that's hundreds of times worse than you can possibly even imagine.

 

The Bush administration is the most totalitarian we've seen in decades, but that does not make them fascists, Nazis, etc. and those who would argue otherwise are relying on a logical fallacy in order to do so.

[ecoli]

eh... what can you do? It's the basis of their entire political agenda. It's a system based on fear mistrust.

 

I wonder where it comes from... a left over from the hippie generation and George Orwell novels, perhaps?

[Pangloss]

Hear, hear, to the OP. And by golly I'm sick and tired of people telling me that I can't be upset about the erosion of civil liberties without engaging in a slippery slope fallacy. I absolutely can do both and be 100% logical in doing so. Reasonable concern is not the same thing as irrational fear, dammit.

 

What makes our 21st century society great is the way we've learned how to implement compromise without loss of core ideals. It's when we FORGET how to do that that we fail.

[D H]

The left is not alone Bascule. The slope is quite slippery on the right side of the hill as well as on the left. Moral conservatives use the slippery slope to argue against civil unions (next step is legalizing child molestation), right to die (next step is forced euthanasia), ...

 

The slippery slope is often just a way to justify intransigence. All uses of the slippery slope argument are unacceptable excuses for logic.

[bascule]

The left is not alone Bascule. The slope is quite slippery on the right side of the hill as well as on the left. Moral conservatives use the slippery slope to argue against civil unions

 

Oh, no doubt. The "Gay marriage? What's next? Polygamist beastiality marriages?" arguments drive me nuts too. Bill O'Reilly is certainly one of the main perpetrators of this approach.

[foodchain]

Oh, no doubt. The "Gay marriage? What's next? Polygamist beastiality marriages?" arguments drive me nuts too. Bill O'Reilly is certainly one of the main perpetrators of this approach.

 

 

Its funny to also look at the idea that such people would put homosexual relationships in the same boat with everything else. Its like saying having legal guns should mean I should be able to purchase some nerve gas at the local store.

[Dak]

the slippery slope fallicy/paradox is wierd. i'm not sure that the 'patriot act shouldn't have passed or next thing we'll know, we'll end up in a martial state' claim is neccesarily as falicious as it seems.

 

consider this:

 

imagine you have a progression, from A to Z. A is ok, but Z is bad; however, moving towards Z is advantageous, as long as you don't actually end up at Z. every single step (e.g., A->B, L->M, P->Q etc) is identicle, and thus none of them represent a logical stopping-point.

 

logically, if you're going to take the step A->B, then you may as well take the identicle steps B->C, and C->D, all the way up to Y->Z. thus, by taking the step A->B, you'll end up getting to Z, step-by-step.

 

the 'logic' works like this: if you argue to stop at M, then you can counter that by saying that theres no difference between L->M and M->N, so, if you were prepared to take the step L->M, you should also be prepared to take the step M->N (and, once there, you should be prepared to take the step N->O). iow, theres a paradox: A->Z is bad, but A->B->C->D...->Y->Z is ok.

 

the reason that it's fallicious to claim that if we go from A->B we'll unavoidably end up at Z is because it completely ignores the fact that humans are capable of dealing with this paradox by picking a semi-arbritrary cutoff point somewhere along the progression.

 

eg, lets stop at M. why M? well, there are two answres. one is 'no reason'. N would have made as good a choice.

 

the important thing to note is that, if you actually say to someone 'well, lets go to N then', they must answre 'no'. avoiding the slippery slope fallicy actually happening requires that you ignore the fact that theres nothing about the step M->N that actually means that you shouldn't take it. if you don't ignore this fact, then you'll take that step. and then the N->O step, etc, untill you're at Z.

 

the other answre to the question 'why M as a cutoff point', then, is that we need a cutoff point or the slippery slope fallicy will actually come true and we'll end up at Z. theres no specific reason for the cutoff point to be M, but, having picked that as your semi-arbritrary cutoff point, there is a neccesity to stick to it, even in the face of rationals such as 'N isn't that much different'.

 

because it's semi-arbritrary, you'll find that lots of people have different cutoff points; K,L,M,N,O, etc. being semi-arbritrary, none is a superiour choice to the others, but, having picked, say, K, you cannot allow yourself to be persuaded to push it back to L based on the fact that L isn't significantly different from K and/or L->K isn't significanly different from the J->K step that you've allready taken, as this is the rational that will lead to the slippery slope actually happening and you ending up at Z.

 

so, as you approach Z, you'll hit more and more people's semi-arbritrary cutoff point. due to it's semi-arbritraryness, they won't be able to justify stopping at that exact point other than by saying that we need a cutoff point, else we'll end up at Z.

 

taking the "patroiot act -> martial law" example from the OP: with increasing military powers, you have to acknowledge that your moving towards a martial state. that's ok, as long as you don't end up actually at the martial law stage.

 

rationally, if you're going to pass the patriot act, you may as well pass the patriot+ act; if you're going to pass the patriot+ act, you may as well pass the patriot++ act, etc, untill you're finally in a martial state -- a bad situation that you don't want to be in (i.e., you experience the slippery slope paradox)

 

so, basically, as you go further and further towards a martial state, you hit more and more people's semi-arbritrary cutoff points, way before you've actually gone too far. they won't be able to justify their cutoff point being exactly where it is (otherwize, there wouldn't be a slippery slope paradox), but they can justify having a cutoff point, and refusing to shift it, by citing the slipperly slope paradox.

 

iow, if someone says 'the patriot act's gone too far; we should have stopped just before it to avoid ending up going step-by-step into a martial state' they're not neccesarily commiting a fallicy, tho claiming that if the govournment doesn't adopt their cutoff point we'll end up in a martial state is still fallicious as it ignores the fact that the govrournment will have it's own cutoff point (probably the mean of the populations cutoff points).

 

cadevats: the cutoff points are only semi-arbritrary. in the first example, whilst M cannot be justified over N, and this doesn't invalidate it as a cutoff point, M can probably be justified over C as a cutoff point -- the neccesity of a cutoff point in a general area can be justified, it's only it's exact placement in that area that is not justified; also, if something doesn't actually form a progression (gay marriage -> bestiality, for example), then slippery slope can never be used as a justification; also, if any of the points represent an actually justifyable stopping point, then theres no slippery slope paradox (thus, calls to the slippery slope paradox cannot be justified).

 

phew! sorry that was so long

[ParanoiA]

Bill O'Reilly is certainly one of the main perpetrators of this approach.

 

Interesting, since he's repeatedly made the same points as you about the slippery slope argument. He doesn't buy it either, or at least the last time I heard him on radio anyway.

 

I don't know that slippery slope arguments aren't merely following logic to its ends. If you're going to say that marriage isn't between a man and a woman, but rather two humans, based on the logic that we have no right to judge or deny others of their own interpretation of marriage, then marriage to other animals is a logical step beyond by using the same logic. Just following it to its ends.

 

The Patriot act establishes a new line of logic. By ignoring our basic privacy rights, we have taken a step in the direction of facism. If you follow the logic to its ends...

 

And Dak makes a great point, if I understood him correctly, that often times we're starting from A and heading towards Z. Z is the extreme of that logic. A is the most subtle application of that logic. Everything in between is discrete steps that we arbitrarily choose as the "line in the sand". And I would add that if that logic is good enough for A, why is it not good enough for Z? If it wasn't appropriate for Z, then why should it be appropriate for A?

 

That's how we get a country that sports freedom while owning slaves...freedom was good for white man, so why wasn't it good for all man? The logic wasn't consistent, wasn't followed to its ends.

 

Edit: To be clear, when I hear the slippery slope argument on gay marriage leading to beastiality, I always say " So...?" Consider the slippery slope being presented before we assume its an undesirable end.

[Phi for All]

Of all the logical fallacies, however, I'm more inclined to lend credence to Slippery Slopes than just about anything else. History has shown that if you give your leaders permission to burn books they will go too far.

 

Political correctness is like a double Slippery Slope. We see a potential for future harm because little Johnny is being picked on by bullies in school. So we intervene and try to "correct" the situation, insuring that little Johnny will never learn how to assert himself and will always look to outside sources when faced with confrontation.

 

And I agree with D H, the right uses SS as well. "We have X number of illegal aliens now, in 20 years we'll have 20X if we don't build a fence to stop them!" Btw, Penn and Teller hired some illegal aliens to build a small section of fence to the same specs being proposed now. Less than 20 feet wide, 14 feet tall and it took six guys all day to build. Then P&T split them into three groups to try going over it, under it and through it. I don't think any of the groups took more than five minutes to thwart "The Fence".

[Pangloss]

Just to put my own spin on what I see as the underlying subject of this thread, I think there's an interesting challenge here for scientists and engineers arising from slippery-slope arguments specifically from the left. I think we see it all the time right here on Science Forums. The general trend amongst scientists and engineers these days is to skew left, even if it's only moderate left. But I see scientists and engineers fall down slippery slopes all the time right here on these boards. Ostensibly intelligent people, who dedicate their lives to science and engineering, proclaiming mad 9/11 conspiracy theories, or vast right-wing conspiracies, or the complete and total loss of all personal liberties. In a sense they "fall down", and the rest of us, knowing that they're smart people who maybe just haven't thought that particular subject all the way through, have a great opportunity at that point to pick them back up and set them back on the right track.

 

In a way it's this board's greatest blessing and its greatest curse. Our main purpose of course is to communicate science and engineering concepts. But if, along the way, we can get smart people thinking along lines they haven't thought before, I consider that a victory.

[Pangloss]

Btw, Penn and Teller hired some illegal aliens to build a small section of fence to the same specs being proposed now. Less than 20 feet wide, 14 feet tall and it took six guys all day to build. Then P&T split them into three groups to try going over it, under it and through it. I don't think any of the groups took more than five minutes to thwart "The Fence".

 

That's hillarious! I presume they restricted them from simply walking around it, right?

 

Did they also mention how little it probably cost to build it compared with what taxpayers will actually spend?

 

I can see I'm going to have to renew my subscription to Showtime.

[geoguy]

"Mixed water fountains? Good grief, next thing you know 'negro' boys will be sitting next to our white daughters in school."

 

One man's slippery slope is another's stair case.

 

The irony is that the world at the bottom of the slippery slope can sometimes be a much better one than that at the top.

[Phi for All]

That's hillarious! I presume they restricted them from simply walking around it, right?

Each group had a pair of tin snips. Two went over, and iirc they took the longest, mostly because the first one over insisted on staying up there to help his buddy; it would have been quicker if he'd given the guy space to jump up by himself since he'd already cut the barbed wire on top.

 

Two went under and they came in second, digging pretty much barehanded.

 

The two who went through pried up the bottom edge of the thick galvanized sheet metal sheath and just cut and kicked themselves through. They were first through, in about three minutes.

Did they also mention how little it probably cost to build it compared with what taxpayers will actually spend?

I don't remember but they did mention that the company who built a similar fence south of San Diego paid like US$5M in fines for... you guessed it... using illegal immigrants to do the building.

 

To bring this back to a slippery slope, when the 700 miles of fence gets breached over and over, we will probably end up approving bigger, higher, stronger fencing. And we will ignore the fact that the vast majority of illegals enter the country on legitimate work visas and simply let them lapse and never go back. Slippery Slope? Yeah, but you just know it's going to happen.

[Pangloss]

Oh we could secure the border if we wanted to. It just takes more than a simple fence. There's also an argument to be made about the number of crossings being reduced by fencing. But the main thing is that people need to realize that fencing alone doesn't accomplish anything. We need a comprehensive approach. And as you say I think that fits the subject of this thread very well. Great example.

 

Thanks for the P&T thing, btw. I found it on YouTube and linked it to my blog, if anybody wants to see it (see sig). I haven't watched it yet but I'll check it out later.

[foodchain]

I think the reason that bush gets called Hitler at times is because due to history the behavior he has and continues to express in a historical context can be compared with that of dictators. Do I think he is Hitler, well Hitler did push in an irrational sense for victory in the soviet union, and well like most found a way to centralize power in an authoritarian sense, liked the concept of secret police that go outside the normal laws that govern a citizen and so on. So no, I don’t think bush is Hitler.

 

I have also noticed that for what its worth, this thread has had a lot about the slippery slope arguments purely of the left. Now being I guess that’s the topic of this thread, I think it misses a point really. Regardless of affiliation one thing that will occur with slippery slope arguments is that because of X, Y will then occur. I can say because of guns and yearly records that next year well over ten thousand humans will die because of such, well over 5000 of them due to handgun based homicide. I can then say the yearly death toll in America due to handgun use is higher then the fatality rate of not only Iraq, but Vietnam, so then is America as bad as both of those combat zones? It simply ignores so much in all reality as is fitting of the fallacy produced or the bias really of the observer. Regardless of the groups, democrats or republicans have failed to bring America to some grand utopia, but yet its the same race in the same circle. I guess it might simply be human in the end, the behavior that is, because it does not take a smart person to see the fallacy that is the slippery slope overall, but what actions does anybody ever take on them? It becomes no more a slippery slope then a giant escapade into the wonders of hypocrisy.

[bascule]

I don't know that slippery slope arguments aren't merely following logic to its ends.

 

The point of a slippery slope is that it's essentially a non sequitur which leaves out the connecting logic.

 

"Letting gays marry? Next thing you know people will be entering into polygamist marriages with their goats and sheep!" alone fails to show how supporting polygamy and beastiality follows from supporting gay marriage.

 

I've never heard Bill O'Reilly broach the issue of slippery slopes. I used to watch his show (followed by Hannity) for a period of some months, largely for comedic value. This is prior to YouTube, NewsHounds, etc. extracting the "gold" from his show so I don't have to listen to the interstitials. However, watching his show entirely I can't help but feel that he got into my head to a certain extent.

 

Every time the issue of gay marriage was broached he would trot out the same, tired line: gay marriage = polygamy, beastiality, polygamist beastiality. He never supported this argument with any type of reasoning, beyond a category fallacy (quasi-strawman: "Gay marriage is indecent, polygamy is indecent, beastiality is indecent, therefore supporting any of these is supporting them all!")

 

Bill O'Reilly certainly isn't a logician. While he may (now) pay lip service to logic (although I certainly never heard him do so) he certainly doesn't practice what he preaches. His arguments are riddled with logical fallacies.

[Genecks]

I think Hitler could have done a better job with the war on terrorism.

[ParanoiA]

Bill O'Reilly certainly isn't a logician. While he may (now) pay lip service to logic (although I certainly never heard him do so) he certainly doesn't practice what he preaches. His arguments are riddled with logical fallacies.

 

Yeah, his arguments are over simplified populist exercises. He uses logic when it's convenient for his position, only. But I do remember one time on the radio when someone was using the slippery slope argument on something, and he started going off about how he doesn't buy into the whole slippery slope thing. Keep in mind, his logic behind it was as sparce as anything else he's spewed on the air.

[Pangloss]

I think Hitler could have done a better job with the war on terrorism.

 

Reminds me of a comparison I recently made between Iraq and Caesar's conquest of Gaul. A million dead gauls, another million sold into slavery (mainly the women and children), and another half a million homeless. But 500 years of relative peace in the region, the civilization that gave birth to France was created, and the citizens of Italia were successfully protected from the Germans (for a while, anyway).

 

It would be interesting to see how much more efficiently we could do things if we didn't constantly tie our own hands behind our backs with unrealistic expectations of civility during wartime.

[Sisyphus]

Well sure, if there weren't incentives to brutally conquer and enslave, nobody would ever do it. Also remember that the Gauls were eventually all granted Roman citizenship....

[Pangloss]

True. Chosing peace and prosperity over endless war and famine are powerful incentives. Assuming, of course, that's what happened there. (History is written by the victors, and all that.) I don't automatically assume Caesar's justifications are honest ones (though they do stand up to analysis).

 

I don't understand your second point.

[Sisyphus]

Not peace and prosperity for the 2.5 million aforementioned gauls, though, right? I mean, you could have "world peace" just by killing the rest of the world. Was the Roman invasion profitable for Rome? Hugely. Was it profitable for the eventual descendants of the survivors in Gaul? Yes, that too. Was it easier than if they had insisted on always being just and humanitarian? Absolutely. It is the obviousness of that last question that is the point I was trying to make. As for the second point, I was hinting at what it actually took for it to be "good" for the Gauls as well, the equivalent in modern times being something like making Iraq the 51st state or something.

[Pangloss]

First of all, the point about peace by killing everyone else is completely facetious, given the other acknowledgements in your post. Are you so outraged by my suggestion that war brought peace that you're losing track of your own argument?

 

And maybe I'm just being dense, but I still don't see that you've made any point at all by mentioning Gallic citizenship, because they wouldn't have become Roman citizens had it not been for that (or some other) merging of those incompatible cultures. And why lament about the 2.5 million Caesar-impacted Gauls, and not the millions of human sacrifices to Druidic gods?

 

But the point you seem determined to miss is not about rationalizing colonialism. That wasn't our motivation in Iraq, and it wasn't Caesar's purpose in Gaul. Republican Romans were not a colonial people or power. They usually conquered regions to stop them from attacking Rome. Exceptions fall mainly in the area of individual corruption (and of course this changes after the fall of the Republic). (Come to think on it, Republican Rome did have dealings with the "Iraq" of that day, and they were based on corrupt, profit motive, and they suffered a terrible fate. I leave it to the individual to decide whether that was due to a failure of moral virtue or not.)

 

Anyway, your profit motive may well have been the case with Caesar, but I'm using this example based on the assumption that it was not, which I think is sufficient example for my purposes here. Were "Republican Rome" in Iraq today instead of the "United States and its allies", we would probably have to make it the 51st state, I agree. Fortunately we have more palatable alternatives available.

 

(This seems a good time to reiterate that I'm not opposed to the war in Iraq along moral grounds. My objections were more in the realm of what is realistic and feasible in terms of both domestic and international politics.)

[Sisyphus]

Actually, I'm not really trying to make a particular argument and I'm certainly not advocating policy. (The distance of history allows us to only get emotionally involved in Caesar's exploits if we want to.) I'm just making observations. Just like I don't think you are actually arguing for some kind of scorched Earth plan in Iraq, just observing that things would be easier and ultimately not necessarily "bad" if we removed moral restraints from ourselves, correct?

 

Anyway, my comment about killing everybody in the world was partly facetious, yes, but still served as an illustration of "ends justifying the means" type thinking. Extreme "ends," even world peace, might be achievable but still not be worth the "means" by moral and practical standards. I don't know if Gaul was such a such a situation and I don't know if Iraq would be. I would say that enough variables are wildly different that the analogy between them isn't terribly useful except in the most abstract of senses. It suggests another option, but provides zero assistance in deciding if it is worth the cost. Personally, I don't think it would be in Iraq.

 

Incidentally, I was using "profit" in the sense of benefit rather than material wealth, though the latter was obviously a prominent component of the former. As for Caesar's personal motives, I think it's safe to say personal ambition and glory were at the forefront of his mind. Luckily for the Romans, he saw himself as the embodiment of the state which he loved dearly, and so personal glory and the glory of Rome (brought both with victory and prosperity) were inseparable, and the wellbeing of stubborn barbarians wouldn't even be a blip on the radar, and least not at first. Is there an analogy to be made there with current events? I kind of doubt it, but I'm openminded.

[Pangloss]

Actually, I'm not really trying to make a particular argument and I'm certainly not advocating policy. (The distance of history allows us to only get emotionally involved in Caesar's exploits if we want to.) I'm just making observations. Just like I don't think you are actually arguing for some kind of scorched Earth plan in Iraq, just observing that things would be easier and ultimately not necessarily "bad" if we removed moral restraints from ourselves, correct?

 

Right. Obviously we aren't going to enslave people, but I'm just tired of having our hands tied behind our backs by people who don't have the cojones to get involved (or even have an opinion until it's too freaking late to matter). It's war. People are going to die. They'd better, or we're going to lose. If people don't like it, do what it takes to stop things from getting that far. Don't just sit back and scream "no blood for oil!"

 

What possible relevence can there be, for example, in the number of Iraqis that've been killed since the US invaded? We can put a man on the moon, so therefore we ought to be able to overthrow a government of 30 million people 15,000 miles away without a single casualty?

 

It's not just Iraq, we see this kind of nonsense all over the spectrum. Disaster preparedness comes to mind. I read a news story the other day that showed just PITIFUL preparation statistics amongst Gulf Coast residents for this year's hurricane cycle (and El Nino's gone and we've already had one tropical storm...). But they know EXACTLY whom they're going to blame after the next Katrina. Because, you know, we can put a man on the moon but we can't stop people from dying after a hurricane.

 

It's not that the Katrina victims didn't have a point, just like it's not to say that the number of dead in Iraq isn't important and awful. But dammit, how can a society exist like this? Will we ever again be able to recognize accomplishment? Cheer for a real success? I'm certain if we cured cancer tomorrow there'd be a story by nightfall about how the cure was damaging to the environment.

 

But whatever. Maybe I'm just getting curmugeonly in my old age.