Slippery slope arguments are frequently dismissed as fallacious or weak arguments but are nevertheless commonly used in political and bioethical debates. This paper gives an overview of different variants of the argument commonly found in the literature and addresses their argumentative strength and the interrelations between them. The most common variant, the empirical slippery slope argument, predicts that if we do A, at some point the highly undesirable B will follow. I discuss both the (...) question which factors affect likelihood of slippage and the relation between the strength of the prediction and the justificatory power of the argument. (shrink)

The Song and Ming dynasty Confucians make frequent use of what would today be identified as a slippery slope argument. The Book of Changes and its early commentaries provide both the language and the rationale for this argument, inasmuch as the Confucians regard these texts as a method for identifying tiny problems that will one day threaten the state. While today the slippery slope argument is often criticized for promoting an unreasoned resistance to change, a close (...) look at its use by Confucians reveals that they largely avoid this criticism, using the argument in a reasoned way to target not change, but excess. (shrink)

Opponents of medically assisted dying have long appealed to ‘slippery slope’ arguments. One such slippery slope concerns palliative care: that the introduction of medically assisted dying will lead to a diminution in the quality or availability or palliative care for patients near the end of their lives. Empirical evidence from jurisdictions where assisted dying has been practiced for decades, such as Oregon and the Netherlands, indicate that such worries are largely unfounded. The failure of the (...) palliation slope argument is nevertheless instructive with respect to how slippery slope arguments can be appraised without having to await post-facto evidence regarding the effects of a proposed change in public policy. Close attention in particular to the norms operative in a given institution and how changes to policy will interact with those norms enable slippery slopes to be credibly appraised. (shrink)

This chapter provides empirical evidence about everyday attitudes concerning euthanasia. These attitudes have important implications for some ethical arguments about euthanasia. Two experiments suggested that some different descriptions of euthanasia have modest effects on people’s moral permissibility judgments regarding euthanasia. Experiment 1 (N = 422) used two different types of materials (scenarios and scales) and found that describing euthanasia differently (‘euthanasia’, ‘aid in dying’, and ‘physician assisted suicide’) had modest effects (≈3 % of the total variance) on permissibility judgments. (...) These effects were largely replicated in Experiment 2 (N = 409). However, in Experiment 2, judgments about euthanasia’s moral permissibility were best predicted by the voluntariness of the treatment. Voluntariness was a stronger predictor than some demographic factors and some domain general elements of moral judgments. These results help inform some debates about the moral permissibility of euthanasia (e.g., the slippery slope argument) suggesting that some of the key premises of those arguments are unwarranted. (shrink)

Agonist theorists have argued against deliberative democrats that democratic institutions should not seek to establish a rational consensus, but rather allow political disagreements to be expressed in an adversarial form. But democratic agonism is not antagonism: some restriction of the plurality of admissible expressions is not incompatible with a legitimate public sphere. However, is it generally possible to grant this distinction between antagonism and agonism without accepting normative standards in public discourse that saliently resemble those advocated by (some) deliberative democrats? (...) In this paper we provide an analysis of one important aspect of political communication, the use of slippery slope arguments, and show that the fact of pluralism weakens the agonists’ case for contestation as a sufficient ingredient for appropriately democratic public discourse. We illustrate that contention by identifying two specific kinds of what we call pluralism slippery slopes, i.e. mechanisms whereby pluralism reinforces the efficacy of slippery slope arguments. (shrink)

The article examines the so-called slippery slope argument (SSA) against the legalization of active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). According to the SSA, by legalizing AVE, the least morally controversial type of euthanasia, we will take the first step onto a slippery slope and inevitably end up in the moral abyss of widespread abuse and violations of the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable patients. In the first part of the paper, empirical evidence to the contrary is (...) presented and analyzed: None of the forecasted regrettable trends can be elicited from the body of existing statistical data. Accordingly, we have no good reason to believe either that we already are, or are sooner or later going to be, sliding into a moral abyss. A related question is then considered: Would it not be wiser and safer to stick to the status quo and preserve the existing legal ban on AVE even if the risk of its abuse is uncertain and may well turn out to be relatively low? It is argued that such an appeal to precautionary reasoning fails to justify an outright legal ban on AVE for at least two reasons: (i) it grossly underestimates the hidden moral costs of current legal arrangements (competent terminal patients suffer both disrespect for their autonomous will and deprivation of the good of a timely death) and (ii) the ban is both too inefficient and disproportionate to qualify as a reasonable measure of precaution. (shrink)

The article examines the so-called slippery slope argument (SSA) against the legalization of active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). According to the SSA, by legalizing AVE, the least morally controversial type of euthanasia, we will take the first step onto a slippery slope and inevitably end up in the moral abyss of widespread abuse and violations of the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable patients. In the first part of the paper, empirical evidence to the contrary is (...) presented and analyzed: None of the forecast regrettable trends can be elicited from the body of existing statistical data. Accordingly, we have no good reason to believe either that we already are, or are sooner or later going to be, sliding into a moral abyss. A related question is then considered: Would it not be wiser and safer to stick to the status quo and preserve the existing legal ban on AVE even if the risk of its abuse is uncertain and may well turn out to be relatively low? It is argued that such an appeal to precautionary reasoning fails to justify an outright legal ban on AVE for at least two reasons: (i) it grossly underestimates the hidden moral costs of current legal arrangements (competent terminal patients suffer both disrespect for their autonomous will and deprivation of the good of a timely death) and (ii) the ban is both too inefficient and disproportionate to qualify as a reasonable measure of precaution. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that permitting, say, voluntary euthanasia would erode the motivations and inhibitions supporting other, legitimate prohibitions on killing to the point where widespread disregard for the moral law would result. this paper discusses the relevance of such "slippery slope" arguments for the rule-utilitarian who claims that we can assess moral rules by asking whether their acceptance would maximize utility. first it is argued that any normative theory of this type cannot recognize slope (...) class='Hi'>arguments as legitimate considerations in this assessment. second, it is suggested that a theory based on the very different notion of choosing a moral code can permit slope arguments to weigh as relevant considerations. (shrink)

Both the traditional Aristotelian and modern symbolic approaches to logic have seen logic in terms of discrete symbol processing. Yet there are several kinds of argument whose validity depends on some topological notion of continuous variation, which is not well captured by discrete symbols. Examples include extrapolation and slippery slope arguments, sorites, fuzzy logic, and those involving closeness of possible worlds. It is argued that the natural first attempts to analyze these notions and explain their relation to (...) reasoning fail, so that ignorance of their nature is profound. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present the empirical version of the slippery slope argument (SSA) in the field of genome editing. According to the SSA, if we adopt germline manipulation of embryos we will eventually end up performing or allowing something morally reprehensible, such as new coercive eugenics. I will investigate the actual possibility of sliding towards eugenics: thus, I will examine enhancement and eugenics both in the classical and liberal versions, through the lens of SSA. In the (...) first part, I will discuss the classical eugenics from a historical perspective and conclude that classical eugenics is morally deplorable; but by currently accepting genome editing I argue that it is not possible to ‘slip’ into classical eugenics. Then, I will analyze liberal eugenics: I will consider Habermas’ and Sandel’s objections to liberal eugenics and genetic human enhancement. Subsequently, I will reply to these arguments affirming that, although it is not possible to refuse any form of genetic enhancement, liberal eugenics would not consider the principles of justice, non-maleficence, and non-instrumentalization; hence, it should be considered not morally acceptable. In addition, I will support the thesis according to which the possibility of relapsing into liberal eugenics is more likely than relapsing into classical eugenics. Then, I will present a strategy that, while avoiding falling into the undesirable scenarios related to SSA, still accepts some application of germline genome editing of embryos and gametes. In such a way, I will show that even if we accept the plausibility of a certain slip into an undesirable scenario, SSA does not offer conclusive reasons to forbid any use of germline genome editing technique in both therapeutic and enhancement fields. (shrink)

The most astonishing by-product of the events of 9-11 is undoubtedly the renewed legitimacy, in the eyes of many, of some forms of torture. Since many centuries, the most brutal dictators have felt the need to lie and deceive about their torture prac-tices, and now we have political and intellectual leaders of the free world openly arguing in favor of the use of torture in certain cases. The most commonly cited of these cases is the one described in the so-called (...) "ticking bomb argument" (hence-forth TBA). -/- The kind of torture that is supposedly justified by this argument can be characte-rized as benevolent torture, well-intentioned torture, or even moral torture because it is different from torture as it is commonly used by certain oppressive or authori-tarian governments. "Ticking bomb torture" is not a method of terrorizing and sub-jugating a population, and neither is it a form of criminal punishment or a means of establishing innocence or guilt. On the contrary, its declared purpose is to protect the population and to avoid a terrorist attack on civilian targets. It is benevolent tor-ture because its objective is not fear or punishment, but safety and security. It is moral torture because reluctance to engage in it would endanger the lives of inno-cent civilians, and would therefore be immoral. "A society that elects to favor the interests of wrongdoers over those of the innocent, when a choice must be made be-tween the two, is in need of serious ethical rewiring". -/- Proponents of the TBA readily agree that they discuss an exceptional case which is unrepresentative of torture in general - most real cases of torture have absolutely nothing to do with the example given in the TBA or fail to conform to the hypo-theses present in the TBA - and which in no way justifies torture that has other, and less benevolent purposes. Yet they believe that this exceptional nature of the case does not render it insignificant or irrelevant. In the setting of a "war on terrorism", it can be extremely important to agree on the soundness of the TBA because no matter how exceptional the case may be, when it occurs it has important conse-quences. A clear agreement on the TBA is necessary in order to save many lives in exceptional cases. -/- I will argue in this paper that the TBA is fundamentally flawed because it is based on a number of untenable assumptions. Moreover, I argue that the TBA, when thought through until its logical conclusions, ends up condoning torture of a much less exceptional and benevolent nature than the torture it started with. In other words, the TBA proves too much. It would not only put us on a "slippery slope" towards ever increasing levels of torture, but also destroy our democracy and free-dom. It is, in the words of the title of this paper, the little door to hell. The TBA tries to force a small opening into an area of human activity that is shielded by a very strong, and perhaps even absolute moral and legal taboo, and then finds that it has allowed this activity to take over civilization. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that the requested euthanasia of adults is morally permissible and should be legalised; I use an argument from analogy which compares physician-assisted euthanasia with morally less ambiguous and, in my opinion, an acceptable instance of mercy killing. I also respond to several objections that either try to prove that the instance of mercy killing is not acceptable, or that there is a fundamental difference between these two cases of killing. Furthermore, in the remainder (...) of the paper I defend the moral permissibility and legalisation of euthanasia against several objections that appeared in local disputes on this issue, based on the concepts of the limits of freedom, the slippery slope, and the needlessness of euthanasia. (shrink)

In recent years, multifetal pregnancy reduction (MFPR) has increasingly been the subject of debate in Norway, and the intensity reached a tentative maximum when Legislation Department delivered the interpretative statement § 2 - Interpretation of the Abortion Act in 2016 in response to the Ministry of Health (2014) requesting the Legislation Department to consider whether the Law on abortion allows for MFPR of healthy fetuses in multiple pregnancies. The Legislation Department concluded that current abortion laws allow MFPR within the framework (...) the law otherwise stipulates. The debate has not subsided, and during autumn 2018, it was further intensified in connection with the Christian Democrat "crossroads" and signals from the Conservatives to consider removing §2.3c and to forbid MFPR. -/- Many of the arguments in the MFPR debate appear seemingly similar to arguments pending in the general abortion debate, and an analysis of what sets MFPR apart from other abortions is wanting. The aim of this article is, therefore, to examine whether there is a moral distinction between abortion and MFPR of healthy fetuses. We will cover the typical arguments of the Norwegian debate, and highlight them with scholarly articles from the literature. The most important arguments against MFPR that we have identified we have dubbed the harm argument, slippery-slope argument, intent argument, grief argument, psychological long-term effects for the woman and sorting argument. We conclude that counter-arguments do not measure up in terms of detecting a morally relevant difference between MFPR of healthy fetuses and abortions. Our conclusion is therefore that—despite what several debaters seem to think—there is no morally relevant difference between the two. Therefore, when we allow abortion, we should also allow MFPR. (shrink)

Opponents of same-sex marriage suggest that legalizing same-sex marriage will start a slide down the "slippery-slope" leading to the legalization of all kinds of salacious family arrangements including polygamy. In this paper, I argue that because previous attempts by liberal political theorists to combat such slippery-slope arguments have been unsuccessful, there are two options left open to political liberals. Either one could embrace polygamy as a logically consistent implication of extending civil liberties to same-sex couples (...) or one could find a new strategy for blocking the slide down the slope. I take the second option arguing that we ought to devise a harm principle for domestic partnerships. Once this principle has been established, it becomes clear that the risk of exploitation for those potentially occupying the multiple side of the marriage is sufficient reason to reject polygamous marriage arrangements. I conclude that, contrary to appearances, holding both (a) same-sex marriage is permissible and (b) polygamous marriage is impermissible is at the same time consistent and consistently liberal. (shrink)

[Utilitarism, Nazism, and Euthanasia] The article is an answer to Prof. Munzarová who criticised my defence of physician-assisted suicide. The article points to shortcomings in the reply of prof. Munzarová which flow from the author’s underestimation of normative theory. Among these shortcomings are the ignoring of the arguments of her opponent; her calling into question the moral credit of the proponents of the competing theory (utilitarianism) rather than a critical analysis; unclear theoretical principles (a switching between paternalism and autonomy, (...) the presentation of the “principle of double-effect” as the standpoint of common sense); an unconvincing version of the “argument of the slippery slope” (ignoring the diametrical differences between the contemporary demand of some patients for assisted death and the Nazi programme of involuntary euthanasia). (shrink)

In ‘Language and Race’, Luvell Anderson, Sally Haslanger, and Rae Langton highlight a slip of ambiguous expression exhibited by racial generics that harbor bad faith arguments, reduces social contingencies to racial essences, and masks oppression. They locate two psycholinguistic slips between classes of generics which communicate their use; one is between the characteristic generic and striking property generic and the other is between the characteristic generic and majority generic. I postulate three additional slips between classes of generics and speaker (...) beliefs; one between the characteristic generic and the normative generic, another between normative generics and a speaker’s belief set, and another slip from a speaker’s belief set to a striking property generic. Together, the slips between generic classes constitute both a reception theory of the meaning of subject S’s utterance and the generic belief (re)generation process that structures the passage an assertion takes from a singular definite belief to a reinforcing normative generic inference in a minimal structure I name the key schema. (shrink)

Patients in Quebec can legally obtain medical assistance in dying (MAID) if they are able to give informed consent, have a serious and incurable illness, are at the end of their lives and are in a situation of unbearable suffering. Since the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 Carter decision, access to MAID, under certain conditions, has become a constitutional right. Quebec physicians are now likely to receive requests for MAID from their patients. The Quebec and Canadian laws recognize a physician’s (...) right to conscientious objection, but this right is contested both in the medical ethics literature and in the public sphere. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study conducted with twenty Quebec physicians who did not integrate MAID into their medical practice, either because they were opposed to or deeply ambivalent about MAID. The interviews aimed to explore the reasons – religious and secular – for opposition to or ambivalence towards MAID. The secular reasons given by participants were grouped into four main categories: 1) the ends of medicine and professional identity, 2) the philosophy of palliative medicine and resource allocation in palliative care, 3) benevolent paternalism, the “good death”, and the interests of future selves, 4) the risk of a slippery slope and the protection of vulnerable people. (shrink)

What is the status of a cat in a virtual reality environment? Is it a real object? Or part of a fiction? Virtual realism, as defended by D. J. Chalmers, takes it to be a virtual object that really exists, that has properties and is involved in real events. His preferred specification of virtual realism identifies the cat with a digital object. The project of this paper is to use a comparison between virtual reality environments and scientific computer simulations to (...) critically engage with Chalmers’s position. I first argue that, if it is sound, his virtual realism should also be applied to objects that figure in scientific computer simulations, e.g. to simulated galaxies. This leads to a slippery slope because it implies an unreasonable proliferation of digital objects. A philosophical analysis of scientific computer simulations suggests an alternative picture: The cat and the galaxies are parts of fictional models for which the computer provides model descriptions. This result motivates a deeper analysis of the way in which Chalmers builds up his realism. I argue that he buys realism too cheap. For instance, he does not really specify what virtual objects are supposed to be. As a result, rhetoric aside, his virtual realism isn’t far from a sort of fictionalism. (shrink)

Alireza Bagheri supports a policy on organ procurement where individuals could choose their own definition of death between two or more socially accepted alternatives. First, we claim that such a policy, without any criterion to distinguish accepted from acceptable definitions, easily leads to the slippery slope that Bagheri tries to avoid. Second, we suggest that a public discussion about the circumstances under which the dead donor rule could be violated is more productive of social trust than constantly moving (...) the line between life and death. (shrink)

This essay aims to tell the story of the “altered nuclear transfer-oocyte assisted reprogramming,” or ANT-OAR, proposal—from its conception by Professor William Hurlbut of the President’s Council on Bioethics—to its adoption and promotion by a group of conservative, mostly Catholic philosophers, theologians and scientists—to its eventual demise in Congress. It also will give some reflections on how ANT-OAR promotes a genetically deterministic view of the human organism and can lead down a slippery slope into a future in which (...) human cloning and human genetic engineering are more acceptable. For these reasons, it will be argued, ANT-OAR should be opposed by all who are against human genetic modification regardless of their political orientation. (shrink)

Major Research Paper Abstract -/- A Part of This World: Deleuze & The Logic Of Creation. -/- Is there a particular danger in following Deleuze’s philosophy to its end result? According to Peter Hallward and Alain Badiou, Deleuze’s philosophy has some rather severe conclusions. Deleuze has been known as a vitalist thinker of life and affirmation. Hallward & Badiou seek to challenge the accepted view of Deleuze; showing that these accepted norms in Deleuzian scholarship should be challenged; and that initially (...) Deleuze calls for the evacuation of political action in order to remain firm in the realm of pure contemplation. I intend to investigate and defend Deleuze’s philosophy and against critics like Badiou and Hallward; and that not only is Deleuze’s philosophy creative and vital but also highly revolutionary and ‘a part of this world.’ I will look at several works in Deleuze’s corpus, as well as look at Deleuzian scholars whom defend Deleuze’s position -/- Hallward sees Deleuze as a theophantic thinker of the one and like Spinoza an individual mode must align oneself with the intellectual love of god, so that creativity and expressivity may mediate through them. Thus, according to Hallward the major theme of Deleuze’s philosophy is creativity; and a subject or a creature must tap into this vital spark of creation, which, is also a form of creatural confinement. Hallward states this creative act can only occur in the realm of the virtual, by lines of flight leading 'out of this world'. The subject is then re-introduced to an extra-worldly existence of contemplation and remains further away from decisions and lived experience. Deleuze, according to Hallward, falls prey to a cosmological pantheism. -/- Badiou has similar concerns. Deleuze’s philosophy is too systematic and abstract. The entirety of Deleuzes’ work is surrounded by metaphysics of the one; and essentially its repercussions lead to an overt asceticism. Badiou notes that Deleuze wants us all to surrender thought to a renewed concept of the one. Through the surrender of the one, the multiple is lost and incorporated into the realm of simulacra. Everything in this Deleuzian world is ‘always-already’ in the infinite and inhuman totality of the one. According to Badiou, this entire process is articulated in the power of inorganic life that operates through all of us. Like Hallward, Badiou sees Deleuze demolishing the subject, who is stuck between machinery and exteriority. Subjects are forced to transcend and go beyond their limits, slowly collapsing into an infinite virtuality. Badiou believes this is a powerful metaphor for a philosophy of death. Thus the conditions of Deleuzian thought are contingent upon asceticism, making a Deleuzian world a sort of ‘crowned anarchy’. Badiou sees Deleuze’s ascetic mission intimately linked with a philosophy of death, and like Hallward we should pay careful attention to the outcome of such an aristocratic philosophy. Death according to Badiou, symbolizes Deleuzian thought, not only making it dangerous, but also actualizing it as an ineffective position. Badiou also points out that Deleuze’s conceptual sources are not only limited but also repeated time and time again through a monotonous selection of concepts. Is this a fair critique and representation of Deleuzian thought? -/- Eugene Holland states, that both Hallward and Badiou have misrepresented Deleuze. Deleuze does invoke the creation of a new earth but one which we all fully believe in. The only world Deleuze wants to get out of is the world of habits, conformity, power; and forces that block creative being. According to Holland, Hallward presents us a Deleuze that inhibits an engagement with the world. However Deleuze’s creative enterprise is insistent on forming concepts that can change and transform our world. -/- So the question arises where does the problem of misrepresentation begin? It begins with both Badiou and Hallward having an erroneous account of the actual/virtual distinction in Deleuze’s Philosophy. According to Protevi, Hallward posits a dualism between the actual and the virtual, denying the role of the intensive. Hallward initially sees the relationship between the intensive and the virtual, ignoring the fact that the intensive has its own ontological register that mediates both the virtual and the actual. However, Protevi notes if one could not accept the intensive for an ontological register and had to place it with one or the other; you would have to accept an interrelationship between the actual and the intensive. Hallward places it in the realm of the virtual, thus, leading us to his major claim that Deleuze’s philosophy leads us out of the world. Protevi states, intensive processes happen in our world they are a part of this world. Hallward completely empties all creativity from the actual, thus depending on the virtual and its slippery slope. Both Hallward and Badiou have missed the point altogether. We live in an intensive/actual world and the main point about Deleuze’s politics has to do with experimentation and social interaction and the transformation and intervention of the concept. As Daniel W. Smith states, unlike Badiou, Deleuze is not searching for an axiomatic approach to the world, one that is prone to reductionism but rather with problematic, inventive and creative methods to transform a society. (shrink)

Preconception sex selection for non-medical reasons raises serious moral, legal and social issues. The main concerns include the threat of a sex ratio distortion due to a common preference for boys over girls, the charge of sexism, the danger of reinforcing gender stereotypical behaviour in sex selected children, and the fear of a slippery slope towards creating designer babies. This paper endeavours to show that none of the objections to preconception sex selection is conclusive and that there is (...) no justification for denying parents the right to choose the sex of their prospective children. (shrink)

Eyal Shahar’s essay review [1] of James Penston’s remarkable book [2] seems more inspired playful academic provocation than review or essay, expressing dramatic views of impossible validity. The account given of modern biostatistical causation reveals the slide from science into the intellectual confusion and non-science RCTs have created: “…. the purpose of medical research is to estimate the magnitude of the effect of a causal contrast, for example the probability ratio of a binary outcome …” But Shahar’s world is simultaneously (...) not probabilistic, but of absolute uncertainty: “We should have no confidence in any type of evidence ….. We should have no confidence at all”. Shahar’s "Causal contrast" is attractive. It seems to make sense, but bypasses in two words the means of establishing causation by the scientific method. This phrase assumes a numeric statistically significant “contrast” is causal rather than a potential correlation requiring further investigation. The concept of “causal contrast” is a slippery slope from sense into biostatistical non-science. This can be illustrated with an hypothetical RCT where 100% of interventions exhibit a posited treatment effect and 0% of placebo controls. Internal validity is seemingly quite reasonably assumed satisfied (common-sense dictating the likelihood of an awesome magnificent fraud, bias or plain error of the magnitude required is infinitesimal). Scientific method appears satisfied. The RCT demonstrates: (1) strict regularity of outcome in the presence of posited cause; (2) the absence of outcome in its absence and (3) an intervention (experiment) showing the direction of causation is from posited cause to posited effect. Now travel further down the slope from science. Assume 50% of interventions and 0% of controls are positive. We compromise scientific method, but justify this by assuming a large subgroup which we say surely must on these figures be exhibiting the posited treatment effect. But what of 10% of interventions and 9% of placebo controls exhibiting the posited treatment effect? Our biostatistician says the 1% “causal contrast” is statistically significant. But we have: (1) minimal evidence of regularity; (2) the posited outcome irrespective of presence of posited cause and (3) our intervention is at the highest equivocal in demonstrating any form of causation. This is not science. It is, however, where biostatistics has unthinkingly taken us, as Penston has shown comprehensively [2]. We, the audience of published medical research, are now for the 10% / 9% example well down the slope from science. An unattractive hypothesis results requiring numerous assumptions similar to these:- "There is a 'contrast' which is ‘causal’, albeit the method employed is not scientific. An effect of the intervention has been observed in a very small subgroup. This subgroup is susceptible to treatment. The similar number of placebo controls exhibiting the outcome sought is irrelevant, because the 1% difference between intervention and controls is statistically significant. The statistical analysis is valid and reliable. The RCT’s internal validity is sufficiently satisfied. No funding or bias or fraud has affected the results or their analysis.” As Penston notes: “Confirming and refuting the results of research is crucial to science …. But … there’s no way of testing the results of any particular large-scale RCT or epidemiological study. Each study … is left hanging in the air, unsupported.” It gets worse. To identify a rare serious adverse reaction of a frequency of 1:10,000 can require a trial of 200,000 or larger split between controls and interventions. This is not done. But for every 100 who prospectively benefit from the intervention, 9,900 also receive it. And for every 100 benefiting one person (who likely gains no benefit) will suffer a serious unidentified adverse reaction. This is also without taking account of more common adverse reactions whether serious or otherwise. References [1] Shahar, E. (2011) Research and medicine: human conjectures at every turn. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 1 (2), 250-253. [2] Penston, J. (2010). stats.con: How we’ve been fooled by statistics-based research in medicine. London: The London Press, UK. (shrink)

If asked to explain why the Golds’ treatment of other colors in Red Rising is wrong, it is tempting to say something like “they are all human beings, and it is wrong to treat humans in this way!” In this essay, I’ll argue that this simple answer is considerably complicated by the fact that the different colors might not be members of the same biological species, and it is in fact unclear whether any of them are the same species as (...) current humans. Explaining why exactly this is so will lead us to an exploration the long-running debate in biology and philosophy over what exactly it means for two organisms to be “members of the same species.” I’ll begin by discussing the biological essentialism of Aristotle and his followers, who held that an individual organism’s species was determined by essence. One can easily imagine that the Golds might find this attractive, since it would suggest that their “superior” mental and physical capacities made them a different (and probably “higher”) species of humanity than the other colors. Unfortunately for Aristotle, this turns out to be inconsistent with Charles Darwin’s account of evolution by natural selection. This development has led many modern biologists and philosophers of biology to conceptualize species not as an abstract “form” that serves to classify organisms, but rather as a concrete collection of organisms relatively close to each other in space and time. In contrast to biological essentialism, this view of “species as concrete individual” might seem to support the Reds’ claim to the “same species” as the Gold, since they are both part of the same overarching society. Next, I’ll consider how we might tell where one species “ends” and another one “begins.” As it turns out, biologists have many ways of answering his question, each of which makes different judgments about the species of Red Rising’s characters. So, for example, the “Biological Species Concept” bases judgements about species membership on the ability to produce fertile offspring. This concept is far from perfect, however, for reasons that Red Rising makes clear: it doesn’t deal clearly with cases where reproduction is possible but very difficult (a Red and a Gold having a child) or for organisms that do not reproduce sexually (such as Pinks). I’ll then explore a few prominent alternatives to BSC, including both genetically and ecologically based species concepts, and consider their consequences for the society of Red Rising. I’ll conclude by advocating for a “pluralism” about species membership, and will suggest that the people of Red Rising (as well as in the real world) should beware of basing arguments for moral or political equality on the all-too-slippery notion of “shared humanity.” Instead, they should focus on the qualities that make the lives of the individuals (regardless of their species) worth caring about, such as their shared desires to avoid suffering and to lead fulfilling, meaningful lives. (shrink)

The thesis defended is that at a certain arbitrary level of granularity, mountains have sharp, bona fide boundaries. In reply to arguments advanced by Varzi (2001), Smith & Mark (2001, 2003) I argue that the lower limit of a mountain is neither vague nor fiat. Relying on early works by Cayley (1859), Maxwell (1870) and Jordan (1872), this lower limit consists in the lines of watercourse which are defined as the lines of slope starting at passes. Such lines (...) are metaphysically sharply delineated although they are not always easy to get at when facing a mountain. Hence, the indetermination is only epistemic. In the second part of the paper, I try to combine this claim about the lower limit of a mountain with more recent claims advanced by alpinists on the right way to measure the height of a mountain, so as to capture its topographic prominence. I argue following them that the proper height of a mountain is the difference of altitude between its summit and its key-saddle, defined as the highest saddle one needs to cross in order to reach the closest higher summit. Combining this two plausible views about the lower limit and height of a mountain leads to the surprising result that the key-saddle needed to measure the height of a mountain is not necessarily located on the lower-boundary of that mountain. (shrink)

Moorean arguments are a popular and powerful way to engage highly revisionary philosophical views, such as nihilism about motion, time, truth, consciousness, causation, and various kinds of skepticism (e.g., external world, other minds, inductive, global). They take, as a premise, a highly plausible first-order claim (e.g., cars move, I ate breakfast before lunch, it’s true that some fish have gills) and conclude from it the falsity of the highly revisionary philosophical thesis. Moorean arguments can be used against nihilists (...) in ethics (error theorists), too. Recently, error theorists have recognized Moorean arguments as a powerful challenge and have tried to meet it. They’ve argued that moral Moorean premises seem highly credible to us, but aren’t, by offering various debunking explanations. These explanations all appeal to higher-order evidence—evidence of error in our reasoning. I argue that drawing attention to higher-order evidence is a welcome contribution from error theorists, but that the higher-order evidence actually counts further against error theoretic arguments—including their debunking explanations—and further in favor of Moorean arguments and the commonsense views they support. Along the way I answer a few prominent objections to Moorean arguments: that they are objectionably question-begging, rely on categorizing some facts as “Moorean Facts”, and that reports of one’s credence in a proposition bears no interesting relation to that proposition’s credibility. (shrink)

Deep disagreements are characteristically resistant to rational resolution. This paper explores the contribution a virtue theoretic approach to argumentation can make towards settling the practical matter of what to do when confronted with apparent deep disagreement, with particular attention to the virtue of courage.

I want to say something about the sort of arguments that it is possible to lose, and whether losing arguments can be done well. I shall focus on losing philosophical arguments, and I will be talking about arguments in the sense of acts of arguing. This is the sort of act that one can perform on one’s own or with one other person in private. But in either of these cases it is difficult to win—or to (...) lose. So I shall concentrate on arguments with audiences. We may think of winning or losing such arguments in terms of whether the audience is convinced. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with who is in the right. That means that there are two sorts of loser: real losers, who lose the argument deservedly, because they are in the wrong, and mere losers, who lose the argument undeservedly, because they are in the right. Hence there must also be two sorts of winner: real winners, who win the argument deservedly, because they are in the right, and mere winners, who win the argument undeservedly, because they are in the wrong. An optimal outcome for arguments with losers would be if all the losers are real losers. (shrink)

Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and then reconstruct the gauge argument (...) as a valid theorem in quantum theory. We then present what we take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether's second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argue that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories. (shrink)

A ‘lottery belief’ is a belief that a particular ticket has lost a large, fair lottery, based on nothing more than the odds against it winning. The lottery paradox brings out a tension between the idea that lottery beliefs are justified and the idea that that one can always justifiably believe the deductive consequences of things that one justifiably believes – what is sometimes called the principle of closure. Many philosophers have treated the lottery paradox as an argument against the (...) second idea – but I make a case here that it is the first idea that should be given up. As I shall show, there are a number of independent arguments for denying that lottery beliefs are justified. (shrink)

Virtue theories have lately enjoyed a modest vogue in the study of argumentation, echoing the success of more far-reaching programmes in ethics and epistemology. Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) comprise several conceptually distinct projects, including the provision of normative foundations for argument evaluation and a renewed focus on the character of good arguers. Perhaps the boldest of these is the pursuit of the fully satisfying argument, the argument that contributes to human flourishing. This project has an independently developed epistemic analogue: (...) eudaimonistic virtue epistemology. Both projects stress the importance of widening the range of cognitive goals beyond, respectively, cogency and knowledge; both projects emphasize social factors, the right sort of community being indispensable for the cultivation of the intellectual virtues necessary to each project. This paper proposes a unification of the two projects by arguing that the intellectual good life sought by eudaimonistic virtue epistemologists is best realized through the articulation of an account of argumentation that contributes to human flourishing. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to present a typology of argument schemes. In first place, we found it helpful to define what an argument scheme is. Since many argument schemes found in contemporary theories stem from the ancient tradition, we took in consideration classical and medieval dialectical studies and their relation with argumentation theory. This overview on the main works on topics and schemes provides a summary of the main principles of classification. In the second section, Walton’s theory is (...) briefly explained to introduce the schemes classification and its different levels. At least, the final part shows the main application of the schemes in computing and AI. -/- . (shrink)

This paper outlines an argument for atheism from naturalism that I have developed in more detail elsewhere (in particular, in *The Best Argument against God*). The overall shape of the argument is as follows: first, naturalism is simpler than theism; second, there is no data that naturalism does not explain at least as well as theism; and, third, naturalism entails atheism; so we have good reason to prefer atheism to theism. Note that this statement of the shape of the argument (...) is NOT a statement of the argument itself. (shrink)

This paper explores an idea of Stoic descent that is largely neglected nowadays, the idea that an argument is valid when the conditional formed by the conjunction of its premises as antecedent and its conclusion as consequent is true. As it will be argued, once some basic features of our naıve understanding of validity are properly spelled out, and a suitable account of conditionals is adopted, the equivalence between valid arguments and true conditionals makes perfect sense. The account of (...) validity outlined here, which displays one coherent way to articulate the Stoic intuition, accords with standard formal treatments of deductive validity and encompasses an independently grounded characterization of inductive validity. (shrink)

What can make storytelling “evil” in the sense that the storytelling leads to accepting a view for no good reason, thus allowing ill-reasoned action? I mean the storytelling can be argumentatively evil, not trivially that (e.g.) the overt speeches of characters can include bad arguments. The storytelling can be argumentatively evil in that it purveys false premises, or purveys reasoning that is formally or informally fallacious. My main thesis is that as a rule, the shorter the fictional narrative, the (...) greater the potential for argumentative evil. Here, the notion of length is to be understood such that it is generally a proxy for more abstract features such as how complex and nuanced the piece is. In other argumentative contexts, length generally appears to make no comparable difference. This feature would put fictional narrative arguments in a special class beyond what is determined by obvious features, such as the definitional fact that they in some way(s) collapse two of the four traditional types of discourse: exposition, description, narration, and argument. The nonobvious features that distinguish this class have been a source of puzzlement and inquiry. (shrink)

A number of authors have developed evidential arguments from evil in the past thirty years. Perhaps the best known evidential arguments from evil are those presented in Rowe (1979) and Draper (1989). We shall spend most of this chapter examining these two arguments.

Certain passages in Kaplan’s ‘Demonstratives’ are often taken to show that non-vacuous sentential operators associated with a certain parameter of sentential truth require a corresponding relativism concerning assertoric contents: namely, their truth values also must vary with that parameter. Thus, for example, the non-vacuity of a temporal sentential operator ‘always’ would require some of its operands to have contents that have different truth values at different times. While making no claims about Kaplan’s intentions, we provide several reconstructions of how such (...) an argument might go, focusing on the case of time and temporal operators as an illustration. What we regard as the most plausible reconstruction of the argument establishes a conclusion similar enough to that attributed to Kaplan. However, the argument overgenerates, leading to absurd consequences. We conclude that we must distinguish assertoric contents from compositional semantic values, and argue that once they are distinguished, the argument fails to establish any substantial conclusions. We also briefly discuss a related argument commonly attributed to Lewis, and a recent variant due to Weber. (shrink)

The Significance Argument (SA) for the irreducibility of consciousness is based on a series of new puzzle-cases that I call multiple candidate cases. In these cases, there is a multiplicity of physical-functional properties or relations that are candidates to be identified with the sensible qualities and our consciousness of them, where those candidates are not significantly different. I will argue that these cases show that reductive materialists cannot accommodate the various ways in which consciousness is significant and must allow massive (...) vagueness in conscious experience. I also will argue that a nonreductive theory of the conscious-of relation can easily provide a very satisfying, unified explanation of the ways in which this relation is significant. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes can be described as abstract structures representing the most generic types of argument, constituting the building blocks of the ones used in everyday reasoning. This paper investigates the structure, classification, and uses of such schemes. Three goals are pursued: 1) to describe the schemes, showing how they evolved and how they have been classified in the traditional and the modern theories; 2) to propose a method for classifying them based on ancient and modern developments; and 3) to outline (...) and show how schemes can be used to describe and analyze or produce real arguments. To this purpose, we will build on the traditional distinctions for building a dichotomic classification of schemes, and we will advance a modular approach to argument analysis, in which different argumentation schemes are combined together in order to represent each step of reasoning on which a complex argument relies. Finally, we will show how schemes are applied to formal systems, focusing on their applications to Artificial Intelligence, AI & Law, argument mining, and formal ontologies. (shrink)

Natural argument is represented as the limit, to which an infinite Turing process converges. A Turing machine, in which the bits are substituted with qubits, is introduced. That quantum Turing machine can recognize two complementary natural arguments in any data. That ability of natural argument is interpreted as an intellect featuring any quantum computer. The property is valid only within a quantum computer: To utilize it, the observer should be sited inside it. Being outside it, the observer would obtain (...) quite different result depending on the degree of the entanglement of the quantum computer and observer. All extraordinary properties of a quantum computer are due to involving a converging infinite computational process contenting necessarily both a continuous advancing calculation and a leap to the limit. Three types of quantum computation can be distinguished according to whether the series is a finite one, an infinite rational or irrational number. -/- . (shrink)

This article is a brief overview of major ontological arguments. The most noteworthy feature of this article is the statement of a new parody of the Anselmian and Cartesian arguments that is obviously immune to objections adverting to intrinsic minima and maxima.

This paper addresses the question of whether all that unites the main parts of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty—the liberty principle, the defense of free discussion, the promotion of individuality, and the claims concerning individual competence about one’s own good—is a general concern with individual liberty, or whether we can say something more concrete about how they are related. I attempt to show that the arguments of On Liberty exemplify Mill’s institutional design approach set out in Considerations of Representative (...) Government and related works. Mill’s approach reflects both his debt to Bentham and his own progressive development of the utilitarian tradition. The paper proceeds by setting out the elements of Mill’s institutional designs and then showing that On Liberty neatly applies them, thereby clarifying the structure of the arguments of On Liberty. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a framework for fostering argumentative skills in a systematic way in Philosophy and Ethics classes. We start with a review of curricula and teaching materials from the German-speaking world to show that there is an urgent need for standards for the teaching and learning of argumentation. Against this backdrop, we present a framework for such standards that is intended to tackle these difficulties. The spiral-curricular model of argumentative competences we sketch helps teachers introduce the relevant (...) concepts and skills to students early on in their school career. The focus is on secondary schools, but the proposal can also be of use for learning and teaching in universities, especially in introductory classes. (shrink)

Discussion of a metaphysical sense of 'inheritance' and cognate notions relevant to fundamentality.

On doxastic theories of propositional faith,necessarily,S has faith that p only if S believes that p. On nondoxastic theories of propositional faith, it’s false that,necessarily,S has faith that p only if S believes that p. In this article, I defend three arguments for nondoxastic theories of faith and I respond to published criticisms of them.

What should a virtue theory of argumentation say about fallacious reasoning? If good arguments are virtuous, then fallacies are vicious. Yet fallacies cannot just be identified with vices, since vices are dispositional properties of agents whereas fallacies are types of argument. Rather, if the normativity of good argumentation is explicable in terms of virtues, we should expect the wrongness of bad argumentation to be explicable in terms of vices. This approach is defended through analysis of several fallacies, with particular (...) emphasis on the ad misericordiam. (shrink)

I argue that one’s views about which “metaphysical laws” obtain—including laws about what is identical with what, about what is reducible to what, and about what grounds what—can be used to deflect or neutralize the threat posed by a debunking explanation. I use a well-known debunking argument in the metaphysics of material objects as a case study. Then, after defending the proposed strategy from the charge of question-begging, I close by showing how the proposed strategy can be used by certain (...) moral realists to resist the evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

Argument from analogy is a common and formidable form of reasoning in law and in everyday conversation. Although there is substantial literature on the subject, according to a recent survey ( Juthe 2005) there is little fundamental agreement on what form the argument should take, or on how it should be evaluated. Th e lack of conformity, no doubt, stems from the complexity and multiplicity of forms taken by arguments that fall under the umbrella of analogical reasoning in argumentation, (...) dialectical studies, and law. Modeling arguments with argumentation schemes has proven useful in attempts to refine the analyst’s understanding of not only the logical structures that shape the backbone of the argument itself, but also the logical underpinning of strategies for evaluating it, strategies based on the semantic categories of genus and relevance. By clarifying the distinction between argument from example and argument from analogy, it is possible to advance a useful proposal for the treatment of argument from analogy in law. (shrink)

This paper explains the importance of classifying argumentation schemes, and outlines how schemes are being used in current research in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics on argument mining. It provides a survey of the literature on scheme classification. What are so far generally taken to represent a set of the most widely useful defeasible argumentation schemes are surveyed and explained systematically, including some that are difficult to classify. A new classification system covering these centrally important schemes is built.