The Slippery Slope Fallacy

This lesson introduces learners to the slippery slope fallacy, a type of informal fallacy of weak evidence where a highly speculative prediction is treated as if it were highly likely. Slippery slopes can be useful for identifying risks and worst-case scenarios, but because they are so speculative, provide little actual evidence for or against an alternative. The asset closes with some questions to ask in order to assess whether a prediction is a slippery slope or not. 

Topics

  • argument
  • fallacious argument
  • fallacy
  • fallacy of weak evidence
  • good reasoning
  • high school
  • informal fallacy
  • predictions
  • protective steps
  • reasonable prediction
  • reasoning
  • scientific reasoning
  • slippery slope
  • slippery slope fallacy
  • unreasonable prediction