scholarly journals Slippery Slopes, Moral Slides and Human Nature

1995 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Colwell
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments ◽  
Direct Bearing

Causal slippery slope arguments with moral conclusions are sometimes stronger than we think. Their strength may be missed either by overlooking the problems of human nature which support the arguments or, upon seeing the problems, by underestimating their influence upon human behaviour. This article aims to correct the oversight and the misjudgement by looking in some detail at four interrelated problems of human nature which have a direct bearing upon moral causal slope arguments.

Human Nature

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dupré
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Biological Theory ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Important Concept ◽  
Process Perspective ◽  
Unpredictable Environment

This sketch of an account of human nature begins with the claim that we should see humans as a kind of process, a life cycle, rather than as a kind of substance or thing. A particular advantage of such a process perspective is that it readily accommodates the developmental plasticity that has been an increasingly important concept in recent biological theory. Human behaviour, on this account, should be understood as providing adaptive and flexible responses to an unpredictable environment. It is, therefore, generally misguided to provide a standard account of human nature in terms of behaviour or behavioural dispositions. If there is such a thing as human nature, it is a uniquely refined propensity for novel and unpredictable behaviour.

What's Wrong with Slippery Slope Arguments?

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trudy Govier
Keyword(s):  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Applied Logic ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Logical Error

Slippery slope arguments are commonly thought to be fallacious. But is there a single fallacy which they all commit? A study of applied logic texts reveals competing diagnoses of the supposed error, and several recent authors take slippery slope arguments seriously. Clearly, there is room for comment. I shall give evidence of divergence on the question of what sort of argument constitutes a slippery slope, distinguish four different types of argument which have all been deemed to be slippery slopes, and contend that two of these types need involve no logical error.We find in textbook accounts three quite differently oriented treatments of slippery slope: conceptual — relating to vagueness and the ancient sorites paradox; precedential — relating to the need to treat similar cases consistently; and causal — relating to the avoidance of actions which will, or would be likely to, set off a series of undersirable events.

scholarly journals Arguments Whose Strength Depends on Continuous Variation

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
James Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Fuzzy Logic ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Continuous Variation ◽  
Symbol Processing ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments

Both the traditional Aristotelian and modern symbolic approaches to logic have seen logic in terms of discrete symbol processing. Yet there are several kinds of argument whose validity depends on some topological notion of continuous variation, which is not well captured by discrete symbols. Examples include extrapolation and slippery slope arguments, sorites, fuzzy logic, and those involving closeness of possible worlds. It is argued that the natural first attempts to analyze these notions and explain their relation to reasoning fail, so that ignorance of their nature is profound.

When slippery slope arguments miss the mark: a lesson from one against physician-assisted death

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 657-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Blackstone ◽  
Stuart J Youngner
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Assisted Death ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments ◽  
Life Sustaining Treatment ◽  
American Society ◽  
Susan Wolf

In 1989, Susan Wolf convincingly warned of a troublesome consequence that should discourage any movement in American society towards physician-assisted death—a legal backlash against the gains made for limiting life-sustaining treatment. The authors demonstrate that this dire consequence did not come to pass. As physician-assisted suicide gains a foothold in USA and elsewhere, many other slippery slope arguments are being put forward. Although many of these speculations should be taken seriously, they do not justify halting the new practice. Instead, our courts, regulatory agencies, journalists, professional organisations and researchers should carefully monitor and study it as it unfolds, allowing continuous improvement just as our society has done in implementing the practice of limiting life-sustaining treatment.

Drawing Distinctions

2018 ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
John McMillan
Keyword(s):  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Moral Reason ◽  
Moral Purpose ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments ◽  
Ethical Debate ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Ethical Work

Introducing or refining moral concepts is an important way of embellishing moral reason. Concepts that pick out distinctive moral issues more clearly are useful ways of furthering ethical debate. Concepts can be defined in a number of ways. In addition to introducing a new concept, arguments can be progressed by considering what must be the case about a concept that is in use in order for it to do the ethical work asked of it. This kind of strategy is what I call drawing ‘transcendental’ distinctions. This chapter describes how distinctions are drawn within slippery-slope arguments, how new concepts can be introduced for a specific moral purpose, and how existing concepts can be refined and theorized. Slippery-slope arguments are quite common in bioethics and, as I will show, can be difficult to sustain and are vulnerable to some common objections.

Singer über Rechte, Recht auf Leben und Euthanasie

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Claude Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Slippery Slope Arguments ◽  
Recht Auf Leben ◽  
The Right ◽  
Utilitarian Theory

AbstractRights are not redundant elements of a plausible utilitarian theory and the right to life is an inseparable companion of the rights to nourishment and to medical care. The deeper reason for this thesis is the interdependence of values concerning vitality. In this perspective it is inconsistent to say that the (normal) newborn is unable to have a right to life, but has a right to be fed. The hidden premise of Singer’s rebuttal of involuntary euthanasia is a theory of rights as vetoes against imposed benefits. Without openly subscribing to such a theory there is no answer to ‘logical slippery slope’ arguments and no protection against dangerous ‘quality of life’ considerations as a basis of decisions over life and death.

Psycho-analysis, Human Nature and Human Conduct

1974 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 99-120
Author(s):  
Ian Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Analytic Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Human Conduct ◽  
The Future

There is, I gloomily suspect, little which is significantly new that remain to be said about psycho-analysis by philosophers. The almost profligate theorising that goes on within the psycho-analytic journals will, no doubt, continue unabated. It simply strikes me as unlikely that such theorising will generate further issues of the kind that excite the philosophical mind. Though in making such an observation, I recognise that I lay claim upon the future in a manner that many might believe to be unwise. The place of psycho-analysis upon the intellectual map, the implications that psycho-analytic theory and practice have for the various kinds of judgements that we make about human behaviour, have been exhaustively discussed in recent times. Rather more specifically, whether psycho-analysis should be accorded the dignity of being labelled a ‘science’, what the significance is of psycho-analysis for those complex problems bounded by the notions of Reason, Freedom, Motivation, have occasioned much fruitful philosophical debate. It is not any wish of mine to add to the literature on these problems in the forlorn hope that even slightly different answers might be forthcoming.

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