1. “If we set up no smoking sections on airlines, then eventually you won’t be able to smoke at all on airlines. Then they’ll ban smoking in restaurants, then bars, then offices, then spaces outside offices, then hotel rooms and apartment complexes. Then they’ll start going after sugary drinks.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
2. “If we legalize homosexuality, then eventually they’ll ask for gay marriage.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I’m old enough to recall these slippery slope arguments, and I lived long enough for them (and many others) to come true. I have no idea what the future will look like, except that I’m pretty sure it will look ridiculous from our perspective. And that’s fine; it’s their world, not ours.
This post is motivated by a Ilya Somin piece in the Washington Post:
Perhaps because efforts to separate the Confederacy from slavery are so implausible, defenders of keeping Confederate monuments in place increasingly resort to slippery slope arguments. Here’s Donald Trump making the case earlier today:
“I wonder, is it George Washington next week?” Trump asked….
He went on to make a slippery slope argument — equating Confederate general Robert E. Lee with presidents like Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who were slave owners…
“So, this week it’s Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. “I notice that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
In fairness, the slippery slope argument is sometimes advanced by more intellectually serious advocates than Trump. It is wrong, even so. The argument fails because there are obviously relevant distinctions that can be made between Washington and Jefferson on the one hand and Confederate leaders on the other.
On the issue of Confederate statues, I agree with Somin. But on the slippery slope argument I agree with our sleazy, lying, white nationalist President. They will eventually come after Washington and Jefferson. Washington is my favorite President, but he was also a slave owner. That’s not a small insignificant flaw; it’s a massive moral failure, far worse than anything Dennis Hastert was accused of.
I don’t favor re-naming the Washington Monument, nor do I think eating meat is immoral, but I fully expect future generations to decide that eating (non-test tube) meat is immoral, and I expect them to rename the Washington Monument.
Our current world is our business, and the ethical standards adopted by the future world is their concern. That’s the real problem with slippery slope arguments.