Lecture 16A: Slippery Slope

Business
1.  Go over homework:  Be sure to use standard form for analogies.
     a.  Animal studies:  http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000245
     b.  Taxation vs Slavery  John Locke
     c.  Wallet vs Cellphone

Slippery Slope Arguments

Papa Bear on Gay Marriage

"If you don't believe in (a) god, then you have no basis for morality, if you have no basis for morality then there's nothing stopping you from killing and stealing."

Formal Structure:
P1: If A then B.
P2: If B, then C.
P3: If C then D.
P4: If D, then E.
P5: If E, then F.
P6:  F is a good thing
P7: A is true.
C:  therefore we should do A. (Positive conclusion).

P6*:  F is a bad thing
C*: therefore we should't do A. (Negative conclusion).

(We can also condense P1-P5 as a single compound premise: If A then B, if B then C, If C then D,...)

Evaluating Slippery Slope Arguments:

1.  How strong and/or true are the causal connections in the chain of reasoning?

2.  Generally, the longer the causal chain, the less likely the argument is to be strong.

3.  Is the conclusion genuinely desirable/undesirable?