Reverse Slippery Slope Fallacy
Arguing that because a slippery slope has failed to appear, further travel down the slope is safe. Note that such arguments can actually legitimize a Slippery Slope Fallacy; the speaker has established a precedent of using previous travel down the slope to justify further travel down the slope; thus, one is justified in worrying that this new action will in turn be used to justify even more actions.
Examples of Reverse Slippery Slope Fallacy include:
- Many of the arguments in favor of SOPA were based on the principle that copyright violation is already a crime (which, to be fair, it entirely is), so expanding the capabilities of the government to detect and prosecute copyright violation is not unreasonable. The fallacy is, of course, conflating 'laws should be enforced' (true) with 'therefore anything that helps enforce the law should be allowed' (false, when and if the police should be allowed warrantless searches or electronic surveillance of people is another debate entirely, but pretty much everyone agrees that whatever the right answer might be "whenever and wherever they feel like it" is definitely not it.)
- In Sicko, Michael Moore tries to allay worries about government-run health care by pointing out that we already have government-run schools and a government-run mail service.
- You might say that this part of the slope has already been traveled in the abundance of countries which already have government-run health care, but although that is relevant to the government healthcare argument it is not relevant to the question of whether Michael Moore committed the fallacy.
Looks like this fallacy but is not
- One can make valid arguments that the failure of dangers to appear from similar circumstances should make us more confident in the safety of the new circumstances. But it can't be used to establish that the new circumstances will definitely be safe, especially if existing concerns about the current circumstances are ignored.