Roberto Fumagalli
Lecturer & Coordinator of PPE Program
King’s College London
Research Associate
London School of Economics

 

Abstract:

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) are employed in a wide range of philosophical debates, but are often dismissed as empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious. In particular, several authors point to instances of ill-founded and fallacious SSAs to argue that we 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 mechanisms leading to slippery slopes in real-life situations to demonstrate that both the strength of SSAs and the justifiability of using SSAs are best assessed on a case-by-case basis.