Good Morning Class,
A recent argument that comes to mind that contains fallacies I used happened last week riday when I was talking to my students. Each Friday, I like to remind my students to be smart on the weekends, and not to get themselves hurt or hurt anyone else. I often find myself talking about drinking and the negative effects that it can have on your life. Using a slippery slope fallacy, I broke down the possible consequences of drinking irresponsibly. I started with the example of having too much to drink, making the bad decision of driving a car, getting pulled over, getting arrested, losing their license, and, ruining their career.
Slippery Slope fallacy is a common fallacy used in explaining the consequences of negative actions. It is similar to the snowball effect in which one initial action leads to other more significant reactions, often ending with a negative outcome. In my argument, I explained how drinking can lead to losing your career. This fallacy is flawed because it assumes that the students drink and assumes they don’t have steps in place to prevent them from drinking and driving, such as a designated driver. I did not provide any examples, nor do I know if any of the students drink.
I commonly like to use the slippery slope type of fallacy. I believe it is because I like to explain the consequences of negative actions and how they can impact your life. However, this goes both ways, I also like to explain the positive outcomes of hard work and good behavior.
I understand that using the slippery slope fallacy is flawed with close relations to scare tactics, assuming whoever I am talking to will make a bad decision. Moving forward I will give more examples rather than possible consequences. In my case I should have used an example of how someone ruined their life by abusing alcohol, hopefully strengthening my argument – Keahi Tabura