Think back to your time in English class during high school. I know that can be daunting or unpleasant to do. Fortunately, you’re not actually back there. But in your time in English class, you almost certainly had a lesson on logical fallacies. In that lesson, you likely came across the logical fallacy of the slippery slope. And you were likely taught the slippery slope fallacy because it is one of the more frequent fallacies used by people when making an argument. Given this is the case, it is accurate to say the slippery slope fallacy is one of the more relevant fallacies regarding political conversations in society.
But before I continue, here’s the definition of a slippery slope fallacy, just in case you’ve forgotten the definition or are someone who’s unfamiliar with the fallacy:
“A slippery slope fallacy occurs when someone claims that a position or decision will lead to a series of unintended negative consequences.”
Essentially, if we do A, then B will happen.
Now, let’s get back to what I said about how this is one of the more relevant fallacies regarding political conversations in society.
Based on the definition of the fallacy, you can probably think of several issues in society where the conversation surrounding the issue is flooded with people making arguments stained by the slippery slope fallacy. One example is found in the environmentalism issue. A relatively common argument environmentalists would make when I was back in high school was that the Earth is going to be destroyed by 2030 as a result of climate change.
Do you see the problem? The claim is scientific in nature (i.e., it can be proven through study and testing) but cannot actually be proven factually. It is a projection. You can’t factually prove the world is going to end by 2030. Sure, you can quote scientists who are raising alarms about climate change and project the world will end by then, but none of that “evidence” is concrete, factual proof. So it is a fallacy to state that we know, factually, that the world is going to be destroyed by 2030 because of climate change. Why, then, was the argument so often made? Well, one potential—and I believe likely—reason lies in the desire to fearmonger society into enacting certain environmental policies.
Now, fearmongering is an accusation that Christians and conservatives should be used to hearing because it is often a claim thrown in our direction, particularly during conversations regarding cultural issues. But if fearmongering is a common reason for committing the slippery slope fallacy, does this mean that we are committing the fallacy in our position on certain cultural issues?
I believe the answer is no. And the reason I believe this is the case is because the slippery slope fallacy is a myth on cultural issues.
Unlike environmental issues, which are just as much scientific or economic as they are moral, cultural issues often center more on the morality of a behavior exclusively. Now, why a behavior is moral or immoral can absolutely be rationalized logically. But that isn’t what I want to focus on. I want to focus on the behavior. Behavior itself isn’t always logical; oftentimes, it’s not. Instead, behavior is often fueled by emotion or desire. Furthermore, behavior also often becomes habitual. And once a behavior becomes a habit, there is typically an increase in occurrence.
This is why I say that the slippery slope fallacy is a myth on cultural issues. On these types of issues, the slope isn’t a fallacy; it’s a necessity. Immoral behavior leads to more immoral behavior. Moral behavior leads to more moral behavior. Or, if you like, pursuing vice leads to more vice, and pursuing virtue leads to more virtue.
Here’s an example that proves this reasoning to be true.
When Obergefell was ruled on by the Supreme Court in 2015, and they ruled in favor of gay marriage becoming legal, many Christians and conservatives argued that this opened the door to many aberrant sexual practices and identities becoming normalized. They were accused of fearmongering for this claim.
Well, it turns out that their claim was correct because here we are, in 2025, and transgenderism is an extremely relevant cultural issue. And it’s not because Christians and conservatives are obsessed with transgenderism. No, it is because the same people who accused Christians and conservatives of fearmongering for their reaction to the Obergefell ruling quickly jumped to demanding that Christians and conservatives affirm people’s gender identities and use their preferred pronouns. And this process happened QUICKLY because transgenderism became a major social phenomenon almost immediately after the ruling. So we societally slid way down the slope—to a point where many people outright reject reality—almost instantaneously. Yikes.
This is just one of many examples. The damaging result of feminism and hookup culture on male-female relations (particularly Gen Z) and the expansion of the permissible abortion timeline are two other examples that fit into the category of sliding-down-the-slope issues that, for the sake of time, I won’t dive into.
So I’ll just leave you with this. Yes, the slippery slope fallacy is a logical fallacy, but it also describes reality when discussing cultural (more exclusively moral) issues because it is human nature to slide down the slope, be it towards vice or towards virtue. Hopefully, going forward, we do more of the latter, both individually and societally.