The Language of Argument

2 8 5

sl i p p e r y sl o p e s

Causal Slippery-Slope Arguments

Another common kind of argument is also often described as a slippery-

slope argument. In these arguments, the claim is made that, once a certain

kind of event occurs, other similar events will also occur, and this will lead

eventually to disaster. The most famous (or infamous) argument of this kind

was used by the U.S. government to justify its intervention in Vietnam in the

1960s. It was claimed that, if the communists took over Vietnam, they would

then take over Cambodia, the rest of Asia, and other continents, until they

ruled the whole world. This was called the domino theory, since the fall of one

country would make neighboring countries fall as well. Arguments of this

kind are sometimes called domino arguments. Such arguments claim that one

event, which might not seem bad by itself, would lead to other, more horrible

events, so such arguments can also be called parades of horrors.

Causal slippery slopes can also slide into good results. After all, someone

who wants communists to take over the world might use the above domino

argument to show why the United States should not intervene in Vietnam.

Such optimistic slippery-slope arguments are, however, much less common

than parades of horrors, so we will limit our discussion to the pessimistic

versions.

These arguments resemble other slippery-slope arguments in that they

depend on a series of small changes. The domino argument does not,

however, claim that there is no difference between the first step and later

steps—between Vietnam going communist and the rest of Asia going com-

munist. Nor is there supposed to be anything unfair about letting Vietnam

go communist without letting other countries also go communist. The

point of a parade of horrors is that certain events will cause horrible effects

because of their similarity or proximity to other events. Since the crucial

claim is about causes and effects, these arguments will be called causal

slippery-slope arguments.

We saw another example in Chapter 4. While arguing against an increase

in the clerk hire allowance, Kyl says,

The amount of increase does not appear large. I trust, however, there is no one

among us who would suggest that the addition of a clerk would not entail

allowances for another desk, another typewriter, more materials, and it is not

beyond the realm of possibility that the next step would then be a request for

additional office space, and ultimately new buildings.^2

Although this argument is heavily guarded, the basic claim is that increasing

the clerk hire allowance is likely to lead to much larger expenditures that will

break the budget. The argument can be represented more formally this way:

(1) If the clerk hire allowance is increased, other expenditures will also

probably be increased.

(2) These other increases would be horrible.

∴(3) The clerk hire allowance should not be increased.

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