This book explores two public sector scandals in the UK, drawing on Max Weber's thought on 'the iron cage' to understand how these cases of patient-neglect in NHS hospitals and failures by police and social workers to address the organised sexual exploitation of young girls occurred. Through examination of the management failures and institutional vulnerabilities, and with attention to the trends of bureaucratisation and rationalisation that characterised both scandals, it reveals the explanatory power of Weber's thought, developing a theoretical model (...) that updates and extends Weber's work in light of the cases discussed. Showing that ordinary people as well as ordinary people, including professionals, are still trapped in the 'iron cage', it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, as well as those providing training and working within the caring and service professions of policing, social work and nursing. (shrink)

A "slippery slope argument" is a type of argument in which a first step is taken and a series of inextricable consequences follow, ultimately leading to a disastrous outcome. Many textbooks on informal logic and critical thinking treat the slippery slope argument as a fallacy. Walton argues that used correctly in some cases, they can be a reasonable type of argument to shift a burden of proof in a critical discussion, while in other cases they are used incorrectly. (...) Walton identifies and analyzes four types of slippery slope argument. Walton presents guidelines that show how each type of slippery slope argument can be used correctly or incorrectly, using over fifty case studies of argumentation on controversial issues. These include abortion, medical research on human embryos, euthanasia, the decriminalization of marijuana, pornography, and censorship, and banning of American flag burning. (shrink)

It has been argued that geoengineering research should not be pursued because of a slippery slope from research to problematic deployment. These arguments have been thought weak or defective on the basis of interpretations that treat the arguments as relying on dubious premises. The paper urges a new interpretation of these arguments as precautionary arguments, i.e. as relying on a precautionary principle. This interpretation helps us better appreciate the potential normative force of the worries, their potential policy relevance, and (...) the kind of evidence required by slippery slope arguments. Understood as precautionary arguments, it is clear that slippery slope arguments against geoengineering capture concerns that are worth taking seriously. (shrink)

Slippery slope argumentation features prominently in debates over assisted suicide. The jurisdiction of Oregon features prominently too, especially as regards parliamentary scrutiny of assisted suicide proposals. This paper examines Oregon’s public data (including certain official pronouncements) on assisted suicide in light of the two basic versions of the slippery slope argument, the empirical and moral-logical versions. Oregon’s data evidences some normatively interesting shifts in its assisted suicide practice which in turn prompts consideration of two elements of moral-logical slippage (...) that are not widely discussed. One is slippage from an initial autonomy-based public justification for assisted suicide which does not include burden-based concerns within its operative account of voluntariness to an evolved public justification that does. The other is an expansion of a terminal illness ground to include chronic illnesses effectively rendered terminal via a refusal of treatment. (shrink)

A slippery slope argument is an argument to this twofold effect. First, that if a policy or practice P is permitted, then we lack the dialectical resources to demonstrate that a similar policy or practice P* is not permissible. Since P* is indeed not permissible, we should not endorse policy or practice P. At the heart of such arguments is the idea of dialectical impotence, the inability to stop the acceptance of apparently small deviations from a heretofore secure policy (...) or practice from leading to apparently large and unacceptable deviations. Using examples of analogical arguments and sorites arguments I examine this phenomenon in the context of collapsing taboos. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments are frequently dismissed as fallacious or weak arguments but are nevertheless commonly used in political and bioethical debates. This paper gives an overview of different variants of the argument commonly found in the literature and addresses their argumentative strength and the interrelations between them. The most common variant, the empirical slippery slope argument, predicts that if we do A, at some point the highly undesirable B will follow. I discuss both the question which factors affect (...) likelihood of slippage and the relation between the strength of the prediction and the justificatory power of the argument. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Addressing the slippery slope argument (SSA) in legal contexts from the perspective of pragma-dialectics, this paper elaborates the conditions under which an SSA-scheme instance is used reasonably (rather than fallaciously). We review SSA-instances in past legal decisions and analyze the basic legal SSA-scheme. By illustrating the institutional preconditions influencing the reasoning by which an SSA moves forward, we identify three sub-schemes (causal SSA, analogical SSA, and Sorites SSA). For each sub-scheme we propose critical questions, as well as four rules (...) that clarify when the SSA scheme is used reasonably. The institutional preconditions make the analogical SSA expectable in common law contexts; the Sorites SSA is expectable in civil law contexts; whereas the causal SSA is common to both contexts. This result should inform future work on the identification of typical argumentative patterns for the SSA in legal contexts. (shrink)

I am deeply worried about your guest editorial,1 please allow me a few bullet points: Trying to dispel some of the counterarguments to sex selection, your argument of prospective parents’ autonomy is void. If anyone has a right to determine his or her sex, it would be the person concerned, in this case the unborn child. ….

Causal slippery slope arguments with moral conclusions are sometimes stronger than we think. Their strength may be missed either by overlooking the problems of human nature which support the arguments or, upon seeing the problems, by underestimating their influence upon human behaviour. This article aims to correct the oversight and the misjudgement by looking in some detail at four interrelated problems of human nature which have a direct bearing upon moral causal slope arguments.

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the slippery slope. According to Patrick Hurley in A Concise Introduction to Logic, “the fallacy of slippery slope is a variety of the false cause fallacy. It occurs when the conclusion of an argument rests on an alleged chain reaction and there is not sufficient reason to think that the chain reaction will actually take place”. The key term in the chapter is “chain reaction”. If (...) all of the events in the chain reaction can be justified, then the slippery slope is not committed. But the nuances and intricate improbable connections between each event still make it difficult to support the ultimate conclusion, which is to get rid of cable. The chapter discusses two simple techniques in order to avoid committing the slippery slope fallacy. (shrink)

The Song and Ming dynasty Confucians make frequent use of what would today be identified as a slippery slope argument. The Book of Changes and its early commentaries provide both the language and the rationale for this argument, inasmuch as the Confucians regard these texts as a method for identifying tiny problems that will one day threaten the state. While today the slippery slope argument is often criticized for promoting an unreasoned resistance to change, a close look at (...) its use by Confucians reveals that they largely avoid this criticism, using the argument in a reasoned way to target not change, but excess. (shrink)

Is the Nazi euthanasia program a useful analogy for contemporary discussions of euthanasia? This paper explores the logic of slippery slope arguments with the Nazi analogy as a test case.

Opponents of medically assisted dying have long appealed to ‘slippery slope’ arguments. One such slippery slope concerns palliative care: that the introduction of medically assisted dying will lead to a diminution in the quality or availability or palliative care for patients near the end of their lives. Empirical evidence from jurisdictions where assisted dying has been practiced for decades, such as Oregon and the Netherlands, indicate that such worries are largely unfounded. The failure of the palliation slope (...) argument is nevertheless instructive with respect to how slippery slope arguments can be appraised without having to await post-facto evidence regarding the effects of a proposed change in public policy. Close attention in particular to the norms operative in a given institution and how changes to policy will interact with those norms enable slippery slopes to be credibly appraised. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments appear regularly whenever morally contested social change is proposed. Such arguments assume that all or some consequences which could possibly flow from permitting a particular practice are morally unacceptable.Typically, “slippery slope” arguments claim that endorsing some premise, doing some action or adopting some policy will lead to some definite outcome that is generally judged to be wrong or bad. The “slope” is “slippery” because there are claimed to be no plausible halting points between the (...) initial commitment to a premise, action, or policy and the resultant bad outcome. The desire to avoid such projected future consequences provides adequate reasons for not taking the first step.Thus the legalization of abortion in limited circumstances is asserted to lead down the slippery slope towards abortion on demand and even infanticide; and the legalization of assisted suicide to lead inexorably to the acceptance of voluntary euthanasia and subsequently to the sanctioning of the practice of nonvoluntary euthanasia – even involuntary euthanasia of “undesirable” individuals. (shrink)

In the debate surrounding the morality and legality of the practices of physician-assisted death and euthanasia, a common logical argument regularly employed against these practices is the “slippery slope argument.” One formulation of this argument claims that acceptance of physician-assisted death will eventually lead down a “slippery slope” into acceptance of active euthanasia, including its voluntary, non-voluntary, and/or involuntary forms, through psychological and social processes that warp a society’s values and moral perspective of a practice over an extended (...) period of time. This formulation is known as the psychological slippery slope argument. This paper analyzes the psychological slippery slope argument as it is applied to the practice of physician-assisted death, and utilizing recent empirical evidence from various nations around the world that practice physician-assisted death and/or euthanasia, the paper argues that employing the psychological slippery slope argument against physician-assisted death is logically fallacious, this kind of slippery slope is unfounded in practice, and thus the psychological slippery slope argument is insufficient on its own to justify continued legal prohibition of physician-assisted death. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: An Example The Paradigmatic Form of the Argument The Appeal to a Pernicious Precedent Slopes of Reason Slopes of Unreason Factual and Moral Plausibility Appearance and Reality References.

Although studies have yielded a detailed taxonomy of types of slippery slope arguments, they have failed to identify a basic argumentation scheme that applies to all. Therefore, there is no way of telling whether a given argument is a slippery slope argument or not. This paper solves the problem by providing a basic argumentation scheme. The scheme is shown to fit a clear and easily comprehensible example of a slippery slope argument that strongly appears to be reasonable, (...) something that has also been lacking. (shrink)

A `slippery slope' argument in medical ethics is one that opposes itself to a new proposal on the grounds that it is not _per se_ intolerable but will lead to a situation that is. Lamb evaluates such arguments, demonstrating their centrality to the subject.

With the lack of progress there has been so far on climate change, some have begun researching the potential of geoengineering to allay future climatic harms. However, others contend that such research should be abandoned. One of the most‐cited reasons as to why research into geoengineering should be abandoned is the idea that such research sits at the top of slippery slope. The Slippery Slope Argument warns that even mere research into geoengineering will create institutional momentum, ultimately leading (...) to the deployment of a technology that is untested and perhaps morally objectionable. This article clearly lays out the Slippery Slope Argument against geoengineering research and analyses its premises. I claim that both the empirical premise – that research will inevitably lead to deployment – and the normative premise – that we have decisive moral reasons to avoid deployment – are questionable. The main conclusion of the article is that while we should be cognizant of the potential for research to lead to undesirable deployment scenarios, engaging in research need not necessarily lead inexorably to deployment. While insufficient to ground a moratorium on research, the Slippery Slope Argument points to the need for regulation and oversight in order to prevent undesirable deployment. (shrink)

A `slippery slope' argument in medical ethics is one that opposes itself to a new proposal on the grounds that it is not per se intolerable but will lead to a situation that is. Lamb evaluates such arguments, demonstrating their centrality to the subject.

A `slippery slope' argument in medical ethics is one that opposes itself to a new proposal on the grounds that it is not _per se_ intolerable but will lead to a situation that is. Lamb evaluates such arguments, demonstrating their centrality to the subject.

Our actions, individually and collectively, inevitably affect others, ourselves, and our institutions. They shape the people we become and the kind of world we inhabit. Sometimes those consequences are positive, a giant leap for moral humankind. Other times they are morally regressive. This propensity of current actions to shape the future is morally important. But slippery slope arguments are a poor way to capture it. That is not to say we can never develop cogent slippery slope arguments. Nonetheless, (...) given their most common usage, it would be prudent to avoid them in moral and political debate. They are often fallacious and have often been used for ill. They are normally used to defend the moral status quo. Even when they are cogent, we can always find an alternate way to capture their insights. Finally, by accepting that the moral roads on which we travel are slippery, we become better able to successfully navigate them. (shrink)

In response to the paper by Keown and Jochemsen in which the latest empirical data concerning euthanasia and other end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands is discussed, this paper discusses three points. The use of euthanasia in cases in which palliative care was a viable alternative may be taken as proof of a slippery slope. However, it could also be interpreted as an indication of a shift towards more autonomy-based end-of-life decisions. The cases of non-voluntary euthanasia are a serious problem (...) in the Netherlands and they are only rarely justifiable. However, they do not prove the existence of a slippery slope. Persuading the physician to bring euthanasia cases to the knowledge of the authorities is a problem of any euthanasia policy. The Dutch notification procedure has recently been changed to reduce the underreporting of cases. However, many questions remain. (shrink)

This article addresses the slippery slope argument in ethics and bioethics, and demonstrates that a lack of consensus about human nature and what constitutes a person contributes to its frequent use in such areas. Rationality and autonomy are contrasted with sentience, and a utilitarian quality of life approach with a deontological sanctity of life approach as defining criteria of personhood. It is argued that the concept ‘quality of life’ is itself a slippery slope. Genetic engineering is discussed as (...) a paradigm of the slippery slope argument in use, as well as IVF, and the distinction between experimental and therapeutic research—both issues of concern to feminists. Australia has been a leader of scientific research in the new reproductive technologies, with regulative thinking following the technological breakthroughs. The question is posed whether biotechnology will repeat a similar pattern. (shrink)

The standard problem with many slippery slope arguments is that they fail to provide us with the necessary evidence to warrant our believing that the significantly morally worse circumstances they predict will in fact come about. As such these arguments have widely been criticised as ‘scare-mongering’. Consequentialists have traditionally been at the forefront of such criticisms, demanding that we get serious about guiding our prescriptions for right action by a comprehensive appreciation of the empirical facts. This is not surprising, (...) since consequentialism has traditionally been committed to the idea that right action be driven by empirical realities, and this hard-headed approach has been an especially notable feature of Australian consequentialism. But this apparent empirical hard-headedness is very selective. While consequentialists have understood their moral outlook and commitments as guided by a partnership with empirical science – most explicitly in their replies to the arguments of their detractors – some consequentialists have been remarkably complacent about providing empirical support for their own prescriptions. Our key example here is the consequentialist claim that our current practises of partiality in fact maximise the good, impartially conceived. This claim has invariably been made without compelling support for the large empirical claims upon which it rests, and so, like the speculative empirical hand-waving of weak slippery slope arguments, it seems similarly to be undermined. While these arguments have presented us with ‘wishful thinking’ rather than ‘scare-mongering’, we argue in this paper that their complacency in meeting the relevant empirical justificatory burden remains much the same. (shrink)

Michael Clark has recently argued that the slippery slope argument against voluntary euthanasia is ‘entirely consequentialist’ and that its use to justify continued prohibition of voluntary euthanasia involves a failure to treat patients who request assistance in ending their lives as ends in themselves. This article agues that in fact the slippery slope is consistent with most forms of deontology, and that it need not involve any violation of the principle that people should be treated as ends, depending (...) upon how that principle is construed. It is concluded that supporters of voluntary euthanasia cannot dismiss the slippery slope argument on the basis of deontological principles but must take seriously the consequences that it postulates and engage in factual argument about their likely extent and about the likely effectiveness of any proposed safeguards. (shrink)

The article examines the so-called slippery slope argument (SSA) against the legalization of active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). According to the SSA, by legalizing AVE, the least morally controversial type of euthanasia, we will take the first step onto a slippery slope and inevitably end up in the moral abyss of widespread abuse and violations of the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable patients. In the first part of the paper, empirical evidence to the contrary is presented and (...) analyzed: None of the forecasted regrettable trends can be elicited from the body of existing statistical data. Accordingly, we have no good reason to believe either that we already are, or are sooner or later going to be, sliding into a moral abyss. A related question is then considered: Would it not be wiser and safer to stick to the status quo and preserve the existing legal ban on AVE even if the risk of its abuse is uncertain and may well turn out to be relatively low? It is argued that such an appeal to precautionary reasoning fails to justify an outright legal ban on AVE for at least two reasons: (i) it grossly underestimates the hidden moral costs of current legal arrangements (competent terminal patients suffer both disrespect for their autonomous will and deprivation of the good of a timely death) and (ii) the ban is both too inefficient and disproportionate to qualify as a reasonable measure of precaution. (shrink)

The article examines the so-called slippery slope argument (SSA) against the legalization of active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). According to the SSA, by legalizing AVE, the least morally controversial type of euthanasia, we will take the first step onto a slippery slope and inevitably end up in the moral abyss of widespread abuse and violations of the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable patients. In the first part of the paper, empirical evidence to the contrary is presented and (...) analyzed: None of the forecast regrettable trends can be elicited from the body of existing statistical data. Accordingly, we have no good reason to believe either that we already are, or are sooner or later going to be, sliding into a moral abyss. A related question is then considered: Would it not be wiser and safer to stick to the status quo and preserve the existing legal ban on AVE even if the risk of its abuse is uncertain and may well turn out to be relatively low? It is argued that such an appeal to precautionary reasoning fails to justify an outright legal ban on AVE for at least two reasons: (i) it grossly underestimates the hidden moral costs of current legal arrangements (competent terminal patients suffer both disrespect for their autonomous will and deprivation of the good of a timely death) and (ii) the ban is both too inefficient and disproportionate to qualify as a reasonable measure of precaution. (shrink)

The travelling salesman problem is one of the most popular problems in combinatorial optimization. It has been frequently used as a benchmark of the performance of evolutionary algorithms. For this reason, nowadays practitioners request new and more difficult instances of this problem. This leads to investigate how to evaluate the intrinsic difficulty of the instances and how to separate ease and difficult instances. By developing methodologies for separating easy- from difficult-to-solve instances, researchers can fairly test the performance of their combinatorial (...) optimizers. In this work, a methodology for evaluating the difficulty of instances of the travelling salesman problem near the optimal solution is proposed. The question is if the fitness landscape near the optimal solution encodes enough information to separate instances in function of their intrinsic difficulty. This methodology is based on the use of a random walk to explore the closeness of the optimal solution. The optimal solution is modified by altering one connection between two cities at each step, at the same time that the fitness of the altered solution is evaluated. This permits evaluating the slope of the fitness landscape. Later, and using the previous information, the difficulty of the instance is evaluated with random forests and artificial neural networks. In this work, this methodology is confronted with a wide set of instances. As a consequence, a methodology to separate the instances of the travelling salesman problem by their degree of difficulty is proposed and evaluated. (shrink)

Agonist theorists have argued against deliberative democrats that democratic institutions should not seek to establish a rational consensus, but rather allow political disagreements to be expressed in an adversarial form. But democratic agonism is not antagonism: some restriction of the plurality of admissible expressions is not incompatible with a legitimate public sphere. However, is it generally possible to grant this distinction between antagonism and agonism without accepting normative standards in public discourse that saliently resemble those advocated by (some) deliberative democrats? (...) In this paper we provide an analysis of one important aspect of political communication, the use of slippery slope arguments, and show that the fact of pluralism weakens the agonists’ case for contestation as a sufficient ingredient for appropriately democratic public discourse. We illustrate that contention by identifying two specific kinds of what we call pluralism slippery slopes, i.e. mechanisms whereby pluralism reinforces the efficacy of slippery slope arguments. (shrink)

Canadian ethicists Jocelyn Downie and Udo Schuklenk seek to assess the effect of Canada’s decriminalisation of ‘medical assistance in dying’ ‘to inform Canada’s ongoing discussions and because other countries will confront the same questions if they contemplate changing their assisted dying law.’1 Their assessment focuses on two arguments earlier levied against expansion of these procedures. The first is that of a ‘slippery slope’ and the second is what they disingenuously call, ‘social determinants of health’. They conclude that, in both (...) cases, the effect of legislation permitting first limited and then expanded options for medical termination has been benign. The argument in this brief commentary is that the ‘slippery slope’ is clearly evident and support for those with chronic, progressive diagnoses a clear contributor to the ever increasing number of persons seeking MAID. Downie and Schuklenk first review the legal and legislative history of MAID. In Carter v Canada, the courts found …. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) have often been viewed as inherently weak arguments, to be classified together with traditional fallacies of reasoning and argumentation such as circular arguments and arguments from ignorance. Over the last two decades several philosophers have taken a kinder view, often providing historical examples of the kind of gradual change on which slippery slope arguments rely. Against this background, Enoch (2001, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 21(4), 629–647) presented a novel argument against SSA use that (...) itself invokes a slippery slope. Specifically, he argued that the very reasons that can make SSAs strong arguments mean that we should be poor at abiding by the distinction between good and bad SSAs, making SSAs inherently undesirable. We argue that Enoch’s meta-level SSA fails on both conceptual and empirical grounds. (shrink)

Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer recently examined the view expressed by John Lorber that whereas at times it is permissible to allow severely handicapped infants to die, killing them must never be allowed. In attempting to demonstrate the mistaken nature of Lorber's fear that allowing active infanticide would lead us onto a slippery slope Kuhse and Singer make much use of John Harris's paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics in which he criticised Lorber's views. This paper examines some (...) aspects of the case advanced by Kuhse and Singer and of the earlier paper by Harris. (shrink)

One frequent argument in the debate over federal funding of human embryo research is the slippery slope argument. Slope arguments can be of several types: either logical, empirical, or full (a combination of logical and empirical slope arguments, with an additional psychological premise). A full slope argument against human embryo research suggests that funding embryo reseach could undermine current protections for human subjects research, erode respect for persons with disabilities, and encourage eugenics practices. While the Panel (...) commissioned by the National Institutes of Health to issue funding guidelines regarding human embryo research acknowledges some slippery slope concerns, the Panel's final report fails to address such concerns in any depth. Given this failure seriously to address these valid concerns, federal funding of embryo research should not proceed at this time. Keywords: embryo, human, slippery slope CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article examines the evidence for the empirical argument that there is a slippery slope between the legalization of voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia. The main source of evidence in relation to this argument comes from the Netherlands. The argument is only effective against legalization if it is legalization which causes the slippery slope. Moreover, it is only effective if it is used comparatively-to show that the slope is more slippery in jurisdictions which have legalized voluntary euthanasia than (...) it is in jurisdictions which have not done so. Both of these elements are examined comparatively. (shrink)

This article applies tools from argumentation theory to slippery slope arguments used in current ethical debates on genetic engineering. Among the tools used are argumentation schemes, value-based argumentation, critical questions, and burden of proof. It is argued that so-called drivers such as social acceptance and rapid technological development are also important factors that need to be taken into account alongside the argumentation scheme. It is shown that the slippery slope argument is basically a reasonable form of argument, but (...) is often flawed when used in ethical debates because of failures to meet the requirements of its scheme. (shrink)

This paper attempts to debunk the slippery-slope argument against human germ-line gene therapy by showing that the downside of the slope – genetic enhancement – need not be as unethical or unjust as some people have supposed. It argues that if genetic enhancement is governed by proper regulations and is accompanied by adequate education, then it need not violate recognized principles of morality or social justice. Keywords: germ-line therapy, slippery slope argument, future generations, social justice CiteULike Connotea (...) Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

I analyze three forms of the slippery slope argument (two logical and one empirical) using two questions: 1) in the context of what kind of norms are we considering a first step on a possible slope: statute law, precedent law, positive morality, or critical morality? 2) What is meant by "If we allow this first step"? The conclusion is that the argument's greatest force is in a context of institutionalized norms, like law, whereas its importance in morality is (...) only marginal. (shrink)

In 1989, Susan Wolf convincingly warned of a troublesome consequence that should discourage any movement in American society towards physician-assisted death—a legal backlash against the gains made for limiting life-sustaining treatment. The authors demonstrate that this dire consequence did not come to pass. As physician-assisted suicide gains a foothold in USA and elsewhere, many other slippery slope arguments are being put forward. Although many of these speculations should be taken seriously, they do not justify halting the new practice. Instead, (...) our courts, regulatory agencies, journalists, professional organisations and researchers should carefully monitor and study it as it unfolds, allowing continuous improvement just as our society has done in implementing the practice of limiting life-sustaining treatment. (shrink)

Whenever some form of beneficent killing--for example, voluntary euthanasia--is advocated, the proposal is greeted with a flood of slippery-slope arguments warning of the dangers of a Nazi-style slide into genocide. This paper is an attempt systematically to evaluate arguments of this kind. Although there are slippery-slope arguments that are sound and convincing, typical formulations of the Nazi-invoking argument are found to be seriously deficient both in logical rigour and in the social history and psychology required as a scholarly (...) underpinning. As an antidote, an attempt is made both to identify some of the likely causes of genocide and to isolate some of the more modest but legitimate fears that lie behind slippery-slope arguments of this kind. (shrink)