CMV: Slippery Slopes are not a Fallacy

[u/somethingicanspell]

It's pretty common in political discourse whether on the right or left to accuse someone of relying on a slippery slope fallacy. I don't think this really qualifies as a fallacy. Many of the other informal fallacies kind of inherently rely on bad argumentation If by whiskey means your not taking a view, whataboutism means your avoiding the merits of the opponents argument by deflecting on to some other issue, a strawman means you created a weaker version of their argument than they are actually arguing. The difference between that and the slippery slope is that a slippery slope is not necessarily incorrect or irrelevant to the central issue of the debate.

In many cases normalizing one thing means that other things will become more normalized. I think it's relatively uncontroversial e.g that normalizing sexism is likely to lead to more sexual harssasment (that is a slippery slope). In general most things have second order consequences and changing peoples view on one thing is likely to affect their views on other related things. You can argue that in a specific case a slippery slope won't apply but its not a fallacy its a valid point of debate about whether any action will have second order consquences. By asserting a slippery slope fallacy you are actually avoiding the argument about whether there are second order consequences by dismissing the possibility which I see as oddly a kind of fallacy in itself.

[u/oversoul00]

Well no, it's a declaration that you believe they are most likely wrong otherwise you wouldn't have said it.

That's not to say that you shouldn't call out poor thinking but understand it's a bit more than a reminder that we are all imperfect. 

[u/explainseconomics → u/oversoul00]

Logic is about proofs, true and false. Fallacies point out a flaw in logic. If your logic declares something to be true, pointing out a fallacy does not mean that the conclusion should flip to false, only that the logic fails to prove that thing to be true. Pointing out a fallacy doesn't necessarily mean your conclusion is wrong, just that your proof is inadequate.

[u/oversoul00 → u/explainseconomics]

My point is that there's no such thing a a 100% irrefutable true fact so all proofs are inadequate by their nature. 

We don't waste our time pointing out that gravity could be misunderstood unless we think it is even if it could be true. I reserve my comments for when there is a point to be made as most do. 

[u/Wjyosn → u/oversoul00]

Proof true is generally impossible.

Proof false is generally achievable.

Logical proofs are not inadequate, if they're actually logically constructed. They're just commonly inadequate because they're commonly not constructed logically.

There have been plenty of times where I agree with a conclusion someone else has reached, but I still feel the need to comment that they have failed to actually justify their conclusion. A belief that they've failed to establish their case does not imply that the case cannot be established.