LOGICAL FALLACY
Slippery Slope
Show the missing steps
What it means
A slippery-slope argument claims that one action will trigger a chain of increasingly serious consequences without establishing why each step is likely to follow. Chains can be real; the fallacy is treating them as inevitable without support.
Typical uses
Law, technology, school policy, regulation, and predictions that a modest first step will end in an extreme outcome.
ORIGIN
Where the idea came from
- Creator or lineage
- No single creator
- Country
- Developed across Western philosophy and legal argument
- Years
- Not attributable to one lifetime
- Development
- The modern label became established during the 20th century.
- Catchphrase
- “Show the missing steps”
A predicted chain needs evidence for its connecting steps; it is not automatically inevitable.
Read the source: Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyQUESTIONS TO ASK
- What connects each step?
- How likely is each transition?
- What safeguard could interrupt the chain?
You do not need to know this concept’s name to use its reasoning. The name simply helps you recognize, examine, and discuss the pattern.
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