The Slippery Slope
As human beings we seek to understand our world through the perception of our senses and the exercise of our faculties of reason. We like to imagine ourselves as neutral, objective arbiters of what we perceive and in how we reason. And yet we are all finite, limited, and biased to some degree or another; furthermore, as Christians, we must confess how we have all been subjected to sin and death and the corruption present in the creation (Romans 5:12-21, 8:18-22). Thus, not everything we think we perceive is accurate; not all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions are based on well-reasoned principles. Humans prove liable to fallacies: mistaken beliefs which often themselves derive from application of deficient forms of reasoning.
Some fallacies can all too easily become staples of argument and rhetoric to the point of rarely being questioned. Among us, no type of fallacy would embody this tendency more than the slippery slope.
The “slippery slope” can be understood in terms of either arguments or events. A slippery slope event presumes a type of “domino effect”: if an event takes place, further events take place as necessary and unavoidable consequences of that event; such is why it is also called the “domino fallacy.” The fallacy in this conclusion involves its determinism: assuming these events which happen in sequence must be caused by all previous decisions, as if those acting in-between had all but lost their moral agency.
A slippery slope argument represents the rhetorical attempt to argue against a given proposition by insisting its acceptance would then demand accepting a further, more unacceptable position. Such slippery slopes can be framed in either conceptual or practical terms. A conceptual slippery slope involves presuming accepting a given idea or reason would then necessitate all presumably consequent ideas or reasons, commonly exemplified by Sextus Empiricus’ outrageous “justification” of incest: he argued if it is not immoral to touch your mother’s big toe with one’s little finger, then the rest would differ only by degree. The practical slippery slope presumes if one decides on a given course of action, there would be no rational basis on which to reject or avoid taking what is presumed as the next step in the imagined course of action which leads to what is imagined to be an undesirable result.
Many might well take offense at characterizing the “slippery slope” as a fallacy. They might point to situations in which people did accept a given proposition, or took a given course of action, and those same people eventually ended up going even farther and ended up accepting or doing the kinds of things regarding which they were warned.
Certainly, part of the appeal of the slippery slope fallacy is its explanatory power and the ability to point to some instances in which people did ultimately find themselves in a very different place than they had imagined when they started. Nevertheless, we must remember the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.” The fallacy of the slippery slope argument is in its insistence that the contemptible or unpleasant end results necessarily follow once the original idea or practice is accepted or fulfilled. In this way, the slippery slope fallacy represents a kind of Calvinism in the decision-making process: once a given idea or action is believed or accomplished, such persons are now predestined to end up accepting or doing contemptible or unpleasant ideas or practices.
Among those in what are deemed non-institutional churches of Christ, arguments against using the collective financial resources of the congregation to support various institutions were often reinforced by appeals to the slippery slope: once they would start supporting orphan’s homes, it was alleged, they would then begin to support other things, and then there would be no end to the kind of “liberal thinking” such people might accept. This “slippery slope” approach can then find its “vindication” by appealing to churches which did begin supporting other things once they started supporting orphan’s homes, and some of those groups have since embraced many other ideas and practices which we believe do not represent God’s purposes as made known in Jesus.
But did it necessarily follow that said Christians and churches would invariably end up supporting all these other things? Counterexamples remain legion but are ignored on account of confirmation bias: there remain plenty of Christians and churches who believe they can support various institutions with the collective financial resources of the congregation who have not accepted other ideas or practices which we believe do not represent God’s purposes and made known in Jesus. Furthermore, if we are willing to see it, there are some more “conservative” than we who have used similar “slippery slope” logic to condemn us: for them the first step in such apostatizing was maintaining multiple loaves and cups in the Lord’s Supper, or maintaining Bible classes divided by age or interest!
Likewise, another challenge of slippery slope arguments involves a failure of imagination. A slippery slope argument imagines accepting a given idea or practice will necessarily lead to accepting a specific set of ideas or practices. But are there not other possibilities which might attend to accepting those ideas or practices? And could one also not construe a “slippery slope” about continuing to deny the legitimacy of the idea or practice against which the argument is made? For instance, some within non-institutional churches of Christ have gone beyond in their denial of the use of collective financial resources to support various institutions and deny that Christians should jointly participate in any kind of collective work above and beyond the local congregation. Does the fact that some have thus behaved demand that all who would agree with the original premise are doomed to condemn all joint participation among fellow believers independent of a local congregation?
Slippery slope arguments do not appeal to reason; they represent a subtle, or often less than subtle, form of fearmongering. Slippery slope arguments do not give sufficient credit, or accountability, to people in their use of moral reasoning. By portraying accepting a given proposition as necessarily requiring a series of thoughts or actions leading to an unpleasant destination, those advancing slippery slope arguments both infantilize those with whom they disagree while also discrediting what might well represent their legitimate concerns with accepting a given idea or practice. The slippery slope argument is refuted the moment anyone accepts the idea or practice without going any farther; valid concerns raised are then easily thrown out the window in endorsing the idea or practice.
In God in Christ through the Spirit, truth is not determined by what we fallaciously imagine must be the inevitable conclusion. Truth, likewise, is not determined by means of rejecting whatever those with whom we disagree accept, or by accepting whatever those with whom we disagree reject. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18): we will not stumble upon the truth by crouching into a position based on the fear of possible consequences or results. Yes, there will be times when people will accept a given idea or practice as acceptable, and in so doing they will open themselves up to ideas or practices which we believe are unacceptable. Many times, they will then accept those unacceptable ideas or practices. But there will be other times in which at least some will reject those unacceptable ideas or practices. At the same time, those who argue against the original idea or practice might find themselves accepting other conclusions based on that idea or practice which also proves unpalatable! Our standard must never be what we imagine must happen if we accept a given idea or practice as true; our standard must always be to ascertain whether a given idea or practice is consistent with what God has made known in Christ through the Spirit, and whether they will lead us closer or farther away from God and His purposes. Let us be wary of any and all appeals to the slippery slope, and firmly anchor ourselves in God in Christ through the Spirit, thus obtaining the resurrection of life!
Ethan R. Longhenry
Works ConsultedSlippery Slope (accessed 2024-01-31).
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