The Hidden Logic of Slippery Slope Arguments

Abstract

This article discusses the logic of the sorites or slippery fallacy which are arguments from incremental differences among objects with indefinite property-complement demarcations arranged along a continuum. However, theoretical difficulties about the arguments are compounded by philosophers who do not naively or unwittingly fall into rhetorical fallacy, but deliberately choose to argue for their beliefs by appeal to the unwarranted distinctions among properties revealed by the nickel-and-dime partitions of the sorites. The standard interpretation of slippery slope arguments holds that the inference trades on conceptual vaguenesses among property parameters with indefinite partitions. Those who regard slippery slope arguments as fallacious usually lay blame on the vagueness of concepts that permit the first step that begins the irreversible slide. There is however something unsatisfying about attributing the fallacy of the arguments to the vagueness or lack of precision in certain concepts or terms. Further, there is an evident connection between the logical structure of slippery slope arguments and mathematical induction. To establish the logical validity of the arguments is by showing that the worst, most problematic cases of slippery slope sophisms are strictly logically valid rather than fallacious.