Slipping on slippery slope arguments
Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) are used in a wide range of philosophical debates, but are often dismissed as empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious. In particular, leading authors put forward a meta-SSA which points to instances of empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious SSAs and...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2020]
|
In: |
Bioethics
Year: 2020, Volume: 34, Issue: 4, Pages: 412-419 |
RelBib Classification: | VA Philosophy |
Further subjects: | B
fallacies
B Law B Public Policy B Bioethics B Vagueness B slippery slope arguments |
Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) are used in a wide range of philosophical debates, but are often dismissed as empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious. In particular, leading authors put forward a meta-SSA which points to instances of empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious SSAs and to the alleged existence of a slippery slope leading to such SSAs to demonstrate that people should avoid using SSAs altogether. In this paper, I examine these prominent calls against using SSAs and argue that such calls do not withstand scrutiny. I then identify several types of mechanisms leading to slippery slopes in real-life contexts to demonstrate that both the strength of SSAs and the justifiability of using SSAs are best assessed on a case-by-case basis. This result does not exempt the proponents of SSAs from the task of vindicating their use of SSAs. However, if correct, it undermines the often-made claim that people should avoid using SSAs altogether. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1467-8519 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Bioethics
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12727 |