Editing Slippery slope (section)

==Types of argument==
Different writers have classified slippery slope arguments in different and often contradictory ways,<ref name="Walton 2015" />{{rp|273–311}} but there are two basic types of argument that have been described as slippery slope arguments.<ref name="The Fallacy Files">{{cite web |url= http://www.fallacyfiles.org/slipslop.html |title=Logical fallacy: slippery slope |website=The Fallacy Files |access-date=2017-03-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kahane |first=Howard |title=Logic and contemporary rhetoric: the use of reason in everyday life |publisher=Wadsworth Thomson Learning |location=Belmont, California |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-534-53578-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/logiccontempora000kaha/page/84 84] |url-access=registration |url= https://archive.org/details/logiccontempora000kaha/page/84}}</ref> One type has been called ''the causal slippery slope'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Ralph |title=Logical self-defense |publisher=International Debate Education Association |location=New York |date=2006 |isbn=978-1-932716-18-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/logicalselfdefen0000john_z0q1/page/180 180] |url= https://archive.org/details/logicalselfdefen0000john_z0q1/page/180}}</ref><ref name="Govier 2010">{{cite book |last=Govier |first=Trudy |title=A practical study of argument |publisher=Cengage Learning |location=Belmont, California |date=2010 |isbn=978-0-495-60340-5}}</ref>{{rp|308}} and the distinguishing feature of this type is that the various steps leading from p to z are events with each event being the cause of the next in the sequence.<ref name="Fogelin 2001 p. 358">{{cite book |last=Fogelin |first=Robert |title=Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic |publisher=Harcourt College Publishers |location=Fort Worth, Texas |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-15-507548-1 |page=358}}</ref> The second type might be called ''the judgmental slippery slope'' with the idea being that the 'slope' does not consist of a series of events but is such that, for whatever reason, if a person makes one particular judgment they will rationally have to make another and so on. The judgmental type may be further sub-divided into conceptual slippery slopes and decisional slippery slopes.

Conceptual slippery slopes, which [[Trudy Govier]] calls ''the fallacy of slippery assimilation'',<ref name="Govier 2010" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pattinson|first=Shaun D.|date=2000|title=Regulating Germ-Line Gene Therapy to avoid Sliding down the Slippery Slope|journal=Medical Law International|language=en|volume=4|issue=3–4|pages=213–222|doi=10.1177/096853320000400404|pmid=15040363|s2cid=24122327}}</ref> are closely related to the [[sorites paradox]]. So, in the context of talking about slippery slopes, Merilee Salmon writes: "The slippery slope is an ancient form of reasoning. According to [[Bas van Fraassen|van Fraassen]] (''The Scientific Image''), the argument is found in [[Sextus Empiricus]] that incest is not immoral, on the grounds that 'touching your mother's big toe with your little finger is not immoral, and all the rest differs only by degree.{{'"}}<ref name="Salmon 1995 p.128">{{cite book |last=Salmon |first=Merrilee H. |title=Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking |publisher=[[Harcourt Brace]] College Publishers |location=Fort Worth |date=1995 |isbn=978-0-15-543064-8 |page=128}}</ref>

Decisional slippery slopes are similar to conceptual slippery slopes in that they rely on there being a continuum with no clear dividing lines such that if you decide to accept one position or course of action then there will, either now or in the future, be no rational grounds for not accepting the next position or course of action in the sequence.

The difficulty in classifying slippery slope arguments is that there is no clear consensus in the literature as to how terminology should be used. It has been said that whilst these two fallacies "have a relationship which may justify treating them together", they are also distinct, and "the fact that they share a name is unfortunate".<ref name="The Fallacy Files" /> Some writers treat them side by side but emphasize how they differ.<ref name="Fogelin 2001 p. 358" /> Some writers use the term ''slippery slope'' to refer to one kind of argument but not the other, but don't agree on which one, whilst others use the term to refer to both. So, for example: 
*[[Christopher Tindale]] gives a definition that only fits the causal type. He says: "Slippery Slope reasoning is a type of negative reasoning from consequences, distinguished by the presence of a causal chain leading from the proposed action to the negative outcome."<ref name="Tindale 2007" />{{rp|185}}
*Merrilee Salmon describes the fallacy as a failure to recognise that meaningful distinctions can be drawn and even casts the "[[domino theory]]" in that light.<ref name="Salmon 1995 p.128" />
*[[Douglas N. Walton]] says that an essential feature of slippery slopes is a "loss of control" and this only fits with the decisional type of slippery slope. He says that, "The domino argument has a sequence of events in which each one in the sequence causes the next one to happen in such a manner that once the first event occurs it will lead to the next event, and so forth, until the last event in the sequence finally occurs…(and)…is clearly different from the slippery slope argument, but can be seen as a part of it, and closely related to it."<ref name="Walton 2016">{{cite book |last=Walton |first=Douglas N. |author-link=Douglas N. Walton |chapter=Slippery Slope |editor-last=Have |editor-first=Henk |title=Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics |pages=2623–2632 |publisher=[[Springer Nature]] |location=Berlin |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-09483-0_394 |date=2016 |isbn=978-3-319-09482-3 |doi-access=free}}</ref>