slippery slope : Java Glossary

The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:

• Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
• Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

Here is an example: If we allow homosexuals any civil rights, then inevitably they will take over and make it compulsory and heterosexuality illegal, and will force us to stand by while they rape our children or even force us to participate.

The silliness of the argument is clear if you apply the slippery slope argument to driving a car. According to the slippery slope argument, you should never turn your wheel, even a tad, to the right, or you might keep on turning it and go into the ditch. Those proposing such an argument fail to consider that once you have turned sufficiently, you will of course stop turning. Why would you deliberately hurt yourself? They fail to consider that if you turn too far right, you then naturally correct back. Correcting alternately right/left is the normal way to drive, nothing to fear.