MercatorNet: Who’s afraid of the slippery slope?

Link: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/whos_afraid_of_the_slippery_slope (via shareaholic.com)

More than a scare tactic
The problem with this point of view is that it fails to appreciate the many and varied ways in which 'slippery slope' scenarios (as opposed to arguments) actually function. Indeed, an excellent paper by UCLA Professor of Law Eugene Volokh from 2003 undertook the noteworthy task of demonstrating actual mechanisms that underlie the various 'slippery slope' metaphors.
Volokh discussed mechanisms such as 'cost-lowering', 'attitude-altering', 'small change tolerance', 'political power' and 'political momentum' as examples of mechanisms whereby X can in fact lead to Y.
One intriguing example is that gun registration – itself a seemingly innocuous practice – could 'lower the cost' for government control and restriction of gun ownership. A similar example from the world of bioethics is that IVF technology 'lowered the cost' for research on human embryos and human cloning. Not only did IVF 'lower the cost', it was also 'attitude-altering' in terms of public, scientific, and legislative willingness to accept the concept of human life being created (and eventually destroyed) in laboratories.
In ethical issues the journey from X to Y takes place primarily on the level of principle, and for most of us these principles are hidden away behind layers of passion, emotion, culture, and social mores.
Take, for example, the issue of slavery: very few people are in favour of slavery these days. Yet we know for a fact that this was not always the case. Transport the average Anglo-Saxon of anti-slavery orientation back in time by about 200 years and we might find to our shock and horror that his enlightened moral views are out of step with mainstream society.