Slippery Slope Argument
A slippery slope argument claims that allowing some small event now will eventually culminate in a significant and (usually) negative final effect later. It can be represented as follows,
- If A then B
- If B then C
- …
- If Y then Z
- Not Z
- Therefore Not A
This argument pattern becomes fallacious when the links between the events in the chain are weak or non-existent. In the movie “Hindi Medium”, the mother uses the following slippery slope argument to convince her husband to get their daughter’s admission into an English medium school.
Example (From the movie ‘Hindi Medium’)
- If our daughter goes to a Hindi medium government school, she won’t learn anything.
- When she doesn’t learn anything, she won’t be able to speak in English.
- When someone speaks in English, she will frightened.
- When she is frightened, she won’t be able to fit in with society.
- When she doesn’t fit in society, she will get depressed.
- When she will be depressed, she will start taking drugs.
- Therefore, we must send our daughter to an English medium private school.
In the above argument, the connection between the cause and effect is already weak in every individual argument. However, the final conclusion that if the daughter goes to a Hindi medium school, she will start taking drugs is quite weak, and hardly any correlations exist.
Likewise, the following slippery slope argument is often used to deny free healthcare.
- If we provide free healthcare, people will soon start demanding free cars, phones, houses, food, and everything.
- If people will get everything for free, then they will stop working
- If people stop working, then the economy will be ruined.
- Therefore, free healthcare should not be provided.
The following argument is fallacious because no empirical data supports it. Many countries (like Belgium, Denmark, Canada, Bhutan, and India) are providing free healthcare to citizens and have thriving economies. People don’t demand free cars, phones, etc., because they are given free healthcare. Moreover, the government has to earn enough taxes to pay for free services to the citizens so it must concentrate on the most essential things in life i.e. health, education etc. When people are healthy and educated, they are more productive, they earn more, pay more taxes, and thus contribute to the development of the economy instead of ruining it.
Why Slippery Slope Argument Looks Convincing?
Suppose that the probability of each claim is 10% (A to B, B to C). Then after two chains, the probability becomes just 1%; after three chains, it becomes 0.1%. Hence, the longer the chain, the weaker the possibility of the conclusion being true.
The slippery slope argument often convinces people of the validity of the argument because they can’t evaluate the weakness of the links, i.e. weak correlations between the cause and effect in different premises. As a result, the conclusion is based on an event of very low probability, which is claimed to be almost a certainty, if the first step is not stopped.
