(Open-Ended) I feel like "slippery slope" isn't actually a logical fallacy, people just use that as an excuse to dismiss valid concerns. You?
Life is so full of slippery slopes, I can't see how it's just some logical fallacy. Addictions, infidelity, lying, cursing, etc. Once we start heading in certain directions, it's typically very hard for us to stop and not keep going. Unfortunately, this group doesn't appear to be one... cause it seems like a really good/interesting idea.
First you begin by positing that “slippery slope” isn’t a fallacy, and before you know it, the camel is in the tent and eating your grapes.
While I’m not concerned about camels eating MY grapes, it’s true that they’ll happily eat grapes if given the chance.
Which side do you think is having their valid concerns dismissed? How do you know they’re valid?
So... it isn't ALWAYS a fallacy. In its purest, a slippery-slope argument is of the following form:
“If A, which some people want, is done or allowed, then B, which most people don’t want, will inevitably follow. Therefore, let’s not do or allow A.”
The fallacy occurs when that form is not fleshed out by sufficient reasons to believe that B will inevitably follow from A, such as in the following examples:
In these examples, the conclusion does not follow deductively from the premise. Nor is any reason given to believe that a chain of events set in motion by the act described in the premise will inevitably lead to what’s described in the conclusion. Heck, the above examples are not even good inductive logic.
So you're absolutely correct in saying that not all slippery-slope arguments are fallacies, it just takes logic in between, and that's something a lot of people struggle with.
