Important Cognitive Biases and Principles

Question 1

Hanlon’s Razor

Answer 1

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Question 2

Valid slippery slope arguments vs the slippery slope fallacy

Answer 2

Slippery slopes do happen, and some arguments based on this are logical, but the fallacious construction of the argument occurs when 1) an extreme hypothetical becomes a straw man for the topic at hand, and 2) no proof is presented to show that such an extreme hypothetical will in fact occur.

This fallacy should be considered to be in the category of appeal to emotion, as it leverages fear.

“The strength of the argument depends on two factors. The first is the strength of each link in the causal chain; the argument cannot be stronger than its weakest link. The second is the number of links; the more links there are, the more likely it is that other factors could alter the consequences.”