The Slippery Slope

I've seen a number of people use the slippery slope to argue against taking a step in some direction. If you take a step then you will suddenly enter an uncontrolled slide towards something horrifically bad.

A wikipedia starter link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Are there circumstances where the slippery slope actually exists? Are there things that we must never do because if we did we would inevitably fall into some abyss we can't escape from?

EDIT: Crappy wording.

This post has been edited by zoomer: Sep 27 2008, 04:09 PM

Seriously....nobody? The slippery slope really doesn't exist in any form? If someone punches someone in the face it doesn't mean the entire world will be violent? If someone is compassionate and helps another it doesn't mean everyone will be kind?

There isn't a slippery slope? Good or bad?

What there is, is unintended consequences.

I suspect the main argument against relaxed euthanasia laws is a slippery slope one, which I believe is valid, by the way. The edge, if you like, is the value we all place on an adult Human life.

A bad example could be the relaxation of drug laws, where even partial legalisation leads down the slippery slope of everyone becoming hopeless crack-heads. Nonsense IMO.

You could argue, if you believe in chaos theory, that everything is part of a slippery slope in one way or another..

Why? Someone is suffering and someone helps them end their suffering. What abyss will we fall in? Do you think that ending one person's pain will result in everyone that is in pain being killed? Surely there is a point where we can say that one person should be given mercy and yet realize that not everyone needs to be euthanized. How far should euthanasia go?

I suspect you don't have the answer. I think you have, somewhere in your feelings and your intellect, an ambiguous point where it should stop. You can't define it but still it's there.

That's the Slippery Slope abyss.

One thing that drives the euthanasia slippery slope - the "gravity" if you like - is money.

Inheritance is one. If great-granddad is in a PVS, will his relatives consider the inheritance when deciding whether to switch the machine off?

Lawsuits is another. As the doctor gives the injection, or switches the machine off, or witholds treatment - could it possibly have crossed the blurry line between murder and euthanasia? Lawyers are waiting..

That same blurry line becomes the slippery slope abyss. Once we can reclassify murder as euthanasia in some circumstances (which cannot ever be crystal clear, or cover all human eventualities) then those circumstances can slide down the slope.

Do we practice euthanasia on babies with no hope of life? How certain can a prognosis be? Do we extend euthanasia to quality of life?

Everyone since Hitler's time is afraid of Social Darwinism re-emerging. Euthanasia is the back door.


So despite Euthanasia being an obviously Good Idea in some circumstances, the slippery slope prevents it's legal adoption - at least for now.

I think I gather that Torrenter is suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong) that ending of any life no matter how hopeless that ending THAT life may lead to questionable decisions, leading to completely biased decisions based on fiscal reward etc.

My problem with that is that anything can lead to extreme behavior.... Musical tastes for example can lead to stalking or murder ergo don't listen to music because it may lead you to kill, the slippery slope...

Having a sexual experience can lead to some sick bastards raping and killing therfore never have sex it may cause you to kill and rape...

Anything can be used and manipulated by deranged, misled, or greedy individuals for their own end therefore tight control and legislation are what is required to protect innocent people...

We have laws on dating "No means NO"etc and as with everything these laws are open to interpretation but that is the joy of living in a relatively free society...... The freedom of choice within morally acceptable guidelines for our society...

There is for example the choice to have an abortion , and it's up to individuals to chooses for themselves if it is morally right. With tight guidelines governing the procedure.....

This post has been edited by bigbaldybloke: Sep 29 2008, 10:01 AM

Another example of a slippery slope has been the liberalisation of TV censorship in the UK. Now at the stage where soft porn, profanity and bloody violence are accepted, the content continues to slide, as producers have to do more and more to achieve "shock" value.

Did the availability of supermarket booze start the slippery slope to liberalisation of pub opening hours?

Did the 1950's adoption of commercial TV in the UK start the slippery slope towards the dumbing down of program content on non-commercial channels?

The slippery slope argument can apply in many issues, but as @BBB says; not all. With abortion, the slippery slope was recently halted at 24 weeks. The abyss.

Sometimes, a slippery slope is created; as in the Thatcher aim to make all UK subjects share-owning home-owning entrepreneurial capitalists.

Obama maintains that the US financial deregulation was a slippery slope towards current banking woes. Is he right?

This post has been edited by torrenter: Sep 29 2008, 12:43 PM

The slipper slope is a tool to highlight where a train of thought, action or policy decision may lead. Not an excuse for prohibition and generally for it to work there has to be a clear path of cause and effect. Hence easier access to contraception will lead to the slippery slope of moral decline and people openly having sex on the streets ... easy access to abortion as a means of contraception will lead to the rise of self interest above all other considerations ... meat is murder, the disregarding of an animals right to life leads to man killing man ...not that I necessarily agree with any of those examples but you get the gist. The first step is the hardest and once taken it seems you haven't moved at all.

There has been a slippery slope with regard to use of profanity, sex and violence in film, tv and music whether this has resulted in anything particularly bad is another question. I'm sure that Mary Whitehouse if she were still alive would claim that the recent spate of knifings up and down the UK, teenage pregnancies and drug abuse were all down to it [an obvious sign of moral decay ] but that is another argument.

One could argue for instance that military intervention for even the best of reasons will always leave the door open for its use for the worst of reasons.

Yes Torrenter commercialism generally does lead to a downward trend in the absence of intellectual aspirations. Yes again, greed coupled with financial deregulation did lead to where we are today ... it isn't a slippery slope though just an obvious consequence.

The problem with the use of the slippery slope is that it requires a degree of consistency and principle neither of which modern society has much of.

One of my main recurring nightmares is being caught on a slippery slope - a tiled floor that pitches increasingly forward, or an escalator where the steps pitch forward as I travel down. Not really relevant, but it scares me witless every time I dream it: wake up paralysed, dripping with sweat, simultaneously hot and cold, and then spend the next couple of days with the memory of the nightmare an ever present disturbance at the back of my mind.

I think torrenter's got the right idea when it comes to euthanasia, or the death penalty. If you have a legal system that says any taking of human life* is wrong, that's a strong guarantee against the state sanctioned murder, be it of old people who are made to feel a burden, or eugenicist killing of people with specific diseases or genetic conditions. Personally, I think euthanasia is best managed through the informal decisions of prosecutors, or fellow medics (not) reporting when it happens. That way, when there's a clear, commonsense, ethical justification for a doctor hastening someones death, it can take place, but the state doesn't at any point condone the taking of life.






*As discussed here before though, I don't consider fetuses to posess human life, so I'm ok with terminations

Euthanasia was decriminalized here in 2002 and rightfully so imo. Before the last elections here they were talking about expanding it to minors too, but since we have reached a political standstill since those elections no progress has been made.

There is no way in hell that this legislation can lead to the reinstitution of the death penalty. Partly because the EU doesn't allow it and mostly because I think as a society we evolved beyond it.


Hogwash! The purpose of euthanasia is to end needless suffering at the patient's request. I'd rather have a clearly regulated procedure than be at the mercy of doctors and hospital policy. I'd also rather have a govt (like the one that was in power when the law was passed) that has the guts to take on ethically dubious subjects and create balanced and clear policies based on real world events and concerns. IMO what you propose is not only an incredibly hypocritical approach it also leaves the door wide open for abuse.

Linky to the English translation of the law.
What you propose is how things actually were here before that law passed.
In Belgium this woman would have been able to end her life in comfort instead of having to kill herself the way she did.
Just in case any of you ever find yourselves in a similar situation, you can come to a Belgian hospital and die with dignity.

At worst this law is a slippery slope to a more humane society imo.

@biebel you make a good point that a slippery slope can be an upward slope as much as a downward one.

An example that comes to mind might be the slippery slope from superstition to rational reasoning, driven by the success of the scientific method of enquiry.





This post has been edited by torrenter: Oct 4 2008, 09:29 AM

Killing yourself is easy if you really want to... The woman in your link was perfectly able to end her own life painlessly, in comfort and in her own home with nothing more than a few off the shelf sleeping pills and a glass of warm cocoa. You couldn't have chosen a worse example to bolster your argument... quite simply, she didn't need a law to help her kill herself.

Why do we need a law that could easily be abused or misused (and almost certainly will be). To claim that dying patients wouldn't feel obliged to end it all to lessen the burden on family members is ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as saying there are not unscrupulous relatives waiting to inherit money etc that will manipulate elderly people to claim they want euthanizing... of course, you can claim all you like that it wont happen because there are safeguards, but those safeguards don't stop innocent men and women ending up on death row all the time, and they wont stop people who really don't want to kill themselves from being euthanized.

Once a culture of euthanasia is common place, this subtle manipulation of people will become even harder to detect, just as the implied obligation to euthanize will increase among people who don't want to be a burden.

To claim otherwise is naive in the extreme.

This post has been edited by yourmercifulgod: Oct 4 2008, 10:43 AM