Paul - is there a confusion of categories in how we are defining slippery slope situations?

So, it would seem to me that the Slippery Slope of Singer is not so much a slippery slope, but the logical conclusion of an argument.  If you start of with that premise, you end up with that conclusion.  Though of course, whether you implement that solution or not is a different issue.  As he didn’t, it shows that either the premise is wrong, or there are other complicating factors.

However, another slippery slope argument is that the conclusion is not the logical conclusion, but where we will end up.  An example may be allowing abortion for only the most extreme cases (rape, severe danger for the mother), but by allowing that outlying cases, we have moved down the slippery slope, and ended up with abortions for all on demand.  The result is not the logical conclusion of the premise, but where we end up.

I wonder if there are two other complicating factors of the slippery slope (aside from our dreadful - although in this case, perhaps relieving, too - tendency to be inconsistent):

First, my immoral (or even just unwise) decisions aren’t independent once offs. There is the sense (as in the abortion issue, for instance) in which ‘giving in’ on one decision doesn’t end the debate, but just shifts it along to the next issue. [I remember the Briefing talking about this very thing with regards to women’s ordination and gay ordination]. When repeated over time, we move to a place where we never dreamed of if we keep ‘giving in’ (such that Wade now opposes the very ruling she won).

But the thing that makes it more likely that I give in in subsequent times is that I didn’t just acquiesce to a decision, but implicitly consented to a different theology / worldview / ethic / etc in doing so. And that ethic, when generalised, is the very same principle that leads me to ‘cave’ on the subsequent decisions. And that’s what makes it a slope - because the decisions become related by an underlying ethic / principle that I find easier to adopt each time I assent to it.

Which brings in the second observation - that my immoral (or unwise) decisions are not neutral: they change me. In the case of misdeeds, my actions sear my conscience; they harden my heart and stiffen my neck - which again makes it more likely that I’ll cave the next time. Once I get a taste for sin, I find that I get enslaved to it.

I imagine most people in pastoral ministry (and those who are bold to corret their brothers and sisters) will at some time or other have pointed out where persistant unrepentance may lead. But the problem is, when they head down that path, ‘I told you so’ (said humbly!) never works as a rebuke - because the person no longer cares that they’ve ‘fallen away’: their minds have been changed by their actions, and actions by those changed minds, so on.

Another image would be of divergent paths ... If I choose to go NE instead of E, after a few meters it’s not too hard to corret my path. But after 30 kms, the distance between where I am and where I should be is a lot larger - and so it’s easier to stay on my current trajectory rather than repent, which will mean a lot of bush-bashing to get back to the right path?

Finally, would James 1:13-15 be considered a ‘slippery slope’ argument?

@Mike and @Scott, I think that Scott’s post says what I was trying to say but more eloquently (the story of my life!)

In particular, his point about implicitly acquiescing to an alternate worldview is what I was trying to say when I said that the ultimate conclusion is entailed in the premise, it’s just that I didn’t want to admit it when I started the conversation.

Paul,
I also note that the majority of denominations that have applied the “equal rights” approach to ordination of women have fairly consistently moved on to apply the same worldly logic to homosexual ordination also.

I believe there is a legitimate slippery slope argument when the logic applied to a less contentious issue can be equally applied to another more contentious issue.  Particularly when the agenda of the “reformers” includes a mandate to apply the logic to all situations.

Some small, seemingly inocuous steps do change culture, shift the balance of power/authority, twist orthodoxy, set new standards of wisdom and values and so create momentum for greater changes.

Would Luther be an example?  Would the Roman Catholics have been right to say, “It’s a slippery slope.”

Perhaps the problem with the slippery slope argument is that it is both irrelevant and it doesn’t work. 

Irrelevant: We need to tackle every decision on the basis of whether it is right or wrong, wise or unwise here and now.  If it is a good thing , do it.  If it leads to a possibly bad thing, tackle that one then?

Doesn’t work: Even though the doomsayers were right (womens ordination does lead to all sorts of unrighteousness because people are refusing to deal with the Bible with integrity)  No one listens and saying it makes you sound like a loon, even though you turn out to be right.  You need to tackle each issue on it’s merits.

Michael Hutton
Ariah Park

Yes, but for the right reasons.  I’d rather look like a loon because I stick to Biblical principles on this issue than because I’m so afraid of Z that I’ll block X and Y just in case.

I think what is really tricky is knowing when the slippery slope argument is valid and when it is productive.

Thanks for the articles, God Bless, Michael