three? If one, then I fail to see how that 
warrant can be located within any specifiable 
field. Suppose, then, that we connect each 
ground to the claim with a warrant of its 
own. How would the warrant for (ll be for-
mulated? We might suggest: 

Whenever there is a health threat 
to members of the public, there 
should be a law protecting members 
from that threat. 

What field underwrites this warrant? Similar 
questions will, I believe, arise as warrants 
for l2) and <.31 are fleshed out. But there 
is another, potentially more serious, problem. 
In tlUs particular argument, it seems to me 
that none of the grounds is meant to function 
independently of the rest. The arguer is re-
lying on their cumUlative weight. Hence any 
attempt to tie the grounds individually to 
the claim will result in a distortion of the 
argument. And so we are back to the first, 
but equally unsatisfact~ry, alternative of 
attempting to formulate some one warrant that 
will link all three grounds to the claim. 
But I doubt that tlUs can be done, for here 
we bave an argument which straddles several 
fields (speaking loosely}, crosses over bor-
ders, and is otherwise geographically messy. 
Yet the very fact that this argument seems 
to me quite typical of those found in every-
day argumentation causes me to have real 
reservations about the universal applicability 
of Toulmin's pattern. For the assumption on 
which the model rests depends for its cred-
ibility on a concept [field of argument I for 
which Toulmin has not provided a satisfactory 
elucidation. 

For the reasons indicated, therefore, I 
must conclude that Toulmin's theory of argu-
ment, as intriguing and exciting as it may 
appear to be, faces some severe challenges 
before it can be deemed successful.~ 

EDITORS' NOTE 

This is the first part of Professor Johnson's 
critical review of An Introduction to Rea-
soning. The second-aria fInal part WTlr--
appear in the next issue of ~ (iii. 3). 

27 

analysis of 
examples 

TIIlO analyses of examples appearing in !,g!, 
ii/Supplement (~une, 198Q1 have been re-
ceived. They are printed below. We will 
continue to print such analyses throughout 
the year, as they arrive and as space permits, 
and we emphatically reissue our invitation to 
readers to suDmit their own critiques of 
these or other examples from the Examples 
Supplement. 

THE ARGUMENT 

A retired deputy inspector of the New York 
Police Department wrote the following letter 
in November 1978 to the New York Times in 
response to a Times editorTar-aDout discrim-
ination agains~osexuals: 

I am in complete agreement with the 
last paragraph of your November 10 
editorial on discrimination against 
homosexuals as a generality. However, 
unless a specific exception is made 
relative to "on the street" police 
work, we might be opening Pandora's 
box. 
It is a well-accepted fact in police 
administration that recruitment of 
stable personnel is hampered by the 
inability of science to determine an 
adequate psychological test. In 
order to prevent the employment of 
an unstable police officer, with all 
its concomitant woes, every effort 
must be made to recruit only those 
whose personality traits fit within 
the parameters of normalcy, whatever 
that might be. Throughout the years, 
the news has been replete with in-
stances of recruitment failures in 
this area. No one has yet been able 
to determine what kind or degree of 
pressure will trigger a flawed per-
sonality. 
Unless we are ready to accept homo-
sexuality as totally normal, we must 
consider it as being at least a 
flawed personality trait. Other 
flawed personality traits, if known 
to the recruiter, have been suffi-



1 

cient grounds to exclude an appli-
cant from obtaining entry into the 
police profession. In most instances, 
court action to brand this recruit-
ment policy as arbitrary and capri-
cious has been turned aside. 

To legitimize one fODm of flawed 
personality trait would place New 
York City and the Police Department 
in a very tenuous legal position if, 
as a result of the employment of 
someone with an admitted personality 
flaw, injury to life or limb 
occurred. 
My 35-plus years as a member of the 
New York City Police Department, I 
believe, qualify me as an expert 
with the right to urge caution on 
this issue. 0. 

A SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT FOR DISCRIMINATION 

The retired police inspector is contrib-
uting a novel argument to the continuing de-
bate about whether sexual orientation should 
be included in human rights codes as a pro-
hibited basis for discrimination. Though 
prepared to concede that discrimination 
against homosexuals ought generally to be 
prohibited, he argues that a specific ex-
ception should be made for the hiring of "on 
the street" police officers. He offers no 
evidence that being a homosexual makes a 
person unsuited for such work. Instead, he 
argues that, in order to avoid hiring "un-
stable" police officers (e.g., policemen who 
will use unnecessary force or violence 
against citizens), recruiters must exclude 
all people with "flawed personality traits", 
since there is no way to determine which 
flawed personality traits produce unstable 
policemen. Since homosexuality is a flawed 
personality trait, homosexuals should be 
refused employment as "on the street" police 
officers. Otherwise, New York City could be 
placed in a difficult legal position if in-
jury to life or limb occurred as the result 
of employment of someone with an admitted 
personality flaw. 

An initial difficulty with this argument is 
that it leaves ambiguous the nature of the 
situation which could give rise to a diffi-
cult legal position. Is the inspector afraid 
of what might happen if a homosexual police 
officer proved unstable? Or is he afraid 
that a department which could not discrim-
inate against homosexuals would be legally 
prevented from discriminating against anyone 
on the ground of having a flawed personality 
trait, with the result that non-homosexuals 
with flawed personality traits would be hired 
and prove unstable? The reference to 
"Pandora's box" and the comment that most 
court action to brand a selective recruitment 
policy arbitrary and capricious has been 
turned aside indicate that the latter is the 
inspector's concern. If so, he is implicitly 
excluding from consideration the possibility 
that homosexual orientation in itself might 
make a person unstable. 

28 

The weakness of the inspector's argument 
can be brough.t out by advancing the following 
parallel argument: "Unless we are ready to 
accept wanting to be a police officer as 
totally no~al, we must consider it as being 
at least a flawed personality trait. Hence 
police departments should refuse to hire for 
·on the street" police work anybody who wants 
to be a police officer. Otherwise, they 
could be placed in a difficult legal position 
if injury to life or limO occurred as the 
result of employment of someone with an ad-
mitted personality flaw." The conclusion of 
this argument is absurd, since it would com-
pel police departments to hire only unwilling 
draftees. Since it is as arguable that 
wanting to be a police officer is not totally 
normal as that having a homosexual orienta-
tion is not totally normal, the absurdity of 
the parallel argument shows that something is 
wrong with the argument under investigation. 

What exactly is wrong? The crucial pre-
mises for the inspector's argument are that 
only people with normal (unflawed) personal-
ity traits should be recruited for police 
work, that homosexual orientation is a flawed 
(abnormal) personality trait, and that the 
hiring of police officers with one type of 
flawed personality trait would make it im-
possible legally to exclude anybody on the 
ground of having any type of flawed person-
ality trait. The last of these premises 
seems to be false, unless the law is even 
more of an ass than it sometimes appears to 
be. The first two premises involve an il-
licit shift of meaning, in that one premise 
is acceptable only on one sense of "abnormal 
personality trait" and the other acceptable 
only on another sense of that expression. 

What is an abnormal or flawed personality 
trait? In the context of recruitment of 
policemen, it is an unusual trait of char-
acter which one might reasonably suspect 
would be a source of instability under the 
pressure of police work. For example, a 
candidate who had an odd affect, or who was 
unusually taciturn, sullen, vindictive, hot-
tempered, suspicious, aggressive, withdrawn 
or resentful, would be judged to have a 
flawed personality which would make him un-
suitable for "on the street" police work. It 
seems unlikely, however, that recruiters 
would avoid hiring people whose personality 
was abnormal in th.e sense of being unusual, 
if there was no reason to suspect that the 
abnormal personality trait would be a source 
of instability; consider, for example, un-
usual gregariousness. Indeed, on the street 
police officers probably need an abno~l 
ability to remain cool under provocation. 

On the other hand, the claim that homo-
sexuality is either totally normal or a 
flawed personality trait appears to rest on a 
general claim that any abnormal trait is a 
personality flaw. One could of course quib-
ble that homosexuality is not a personality 
trait at all. More importantly, the sense of 
"abnormal" or "flawed" involved in the under-
lying general claim is a much broader one 
than that involved in the description of 
police recruitment policy. An excessively 
gregarious or excessively calm person is not 
totally normal and in that sense has a flawed 
personality, but such traits would not be 
considered flaws in the context of police re-
cruitment. 



Is homosexuality a flawed trait of the sort 
one would suspect would be a source of insta-
bility? Perhaps, but to maintain this thesis 
the deputy inspector would have to present 
evidence. In this connection, it is note-
worthy that he states that "in most cases" 
court action to brand as arbitrary and ca-
pricious a recruitment policy which bars all 
those with flawed personality traits has been 
unsuccessful. The statement implies that in 
some cases the courts have agreed that the 
policy is arbitrary and capricious, and one 
can reasonably ask whether they would not do 
so if it were used to automatically exclude 
all homosexuals. Prima facie, a homosexual 
orientation does not have the sort of connec-
tion with the use of unnecessary force that 
other abnormal traits do. 

Some final comments are appropriate on the 
appeal to his authority as an expert with 
which the retired inspector concludes his 
letter. His long experience and relatively 
senior rank in the police force lend consid-
erable authority to his description of police 
recruitment policy and of the results of 
court challenges to that po1icy--although one 
would wish he had used a more precise wording 
than "flawed personality trait" in describing 
the policy. But he goes beyond the scope of 
his expertise when he says that science is 
unable to devise a psychological test for in-
stability. He is in a position to know that 
science has not yet developed such. a test, 
but not in a position to know that science 
cannot develop such a test. And in fact one 
could imagine that a careful study of the 
psychological background of police officers 
who go berserk under press.ure or who abuse 
their position of authority might result in a 
fairly accurate profile of the sort of person 
who should not be a police officer on the 
street. Furthermore, if the retired inspec-
tor is offering a slippery slope argument, he 
goes beyond the scope of his authority in 
claiming that legitimizing the hiring of 
homosexuals as on the street police officers 
would make it legally impossio1e for the 
police department to bar anyone on the 
grounds of having a flawed personality trait 
and thus open the way to legal action by in-
jured citizens. Such a claim needs to be 
justified by a careful examination of the 
rulings of the courts in similar cases, an 
examination in which the principles and prec-
edents are brought out. If it is to be ac-
cepted on authority, it should be on the au-
thority of a competent lawyer who has studied 
the relevant documents. At best, the police 
inspector's argument establishes the need to 
get a legal opinion on the question he raises. 

GENERAL REMARKS 
Slippery slope arguments are not always bad. 

Sometimes accepting one thing logically com-
mits you to accepting a lot of other things, 
and it's reasonable to point that out. But 
often it only looks as if accepting the one 
thing commits you to accepting the others, 
and the slippery slope can in fact be avoided. 
In general, one should be suspicious of 
"slippery slope" or "thin end of the wedge" 
arguments. More often than not, they don't 
stand up to critical examination. 

On the substantive question of discrimina-
tion, the general principle is that it is 
justifiable to discriminate against someone 

29 

on the basis of a certain trait if (and only 
if) possession of that trait is relevant to 
their suitability for the benefit they are 
being denied. Human rights codes codify the 
judgement that such traits as race, colour, 
creed, sex or national origin are never rel-
evant per .e to the receipt of benefits in a 
given society. Those who would argue that 
sexual orientation is sometimes relevant need 
to provide evidence in support of their claim, 
since its relevance is not immediately obvious. 
The lack of such evidence is the glaring weak-
ness of the above 1etter.~ 

2 

David Hitchcock 
McMaster University 

Analysis of i8 

I take the conclusion of this argument to 
be that homosexuals should not be allowed to 
become police officers in the N.Y.P.D. The 
grounds offered are that homosexuality is a 
"flawed personality trait" (B) and that the 
employment of persons with such traits is an 
unacceptable risk for New York and the 
N.Y.P.D. (14). 

I think that the major flaw in the argument 
is the author's classification of homosex-
uality as a flawed personality trait. If 
this classification is acceptable, then the 
author's conclusion follows; if not, then the 
author has failed to establish his conclusion. 

Can homosexuality be placed in this cate-
gory? I think not. The phrase "flawed per-
sonality trait" is left rather vague, but one 
thinks perhaps of things like the tendency to 
use excessive force, or to panic under pres-
sure. Such traits, if known to exist in a 
candidate, would seem legitimate disquali-
fiers. However, it is unclear that homosex-
uality belongs to this category. First, a 
flawed personality trait is something that 
can be changed, but there is very little 
evidence that a homosexual can change his or 
her sexual identity. Second, we can all 
understand why a tendency to use excessive 
force, for example, is a trait that would 
disqualify a candidate for the police force. 
There are many circumstances in which such 
a trait might surface with detrimental con-
sequences both to the community and the 
police force. But what circumstances are 
we to imagine which would "trigger" a homo-
sexual with adverse effects on the commu-
nity? The author needs to address these 
and other points before we can accept the 
classification of homosexuality as a "flawed 
personality trait." One final point. In the 
last paragraph, the author attempts to es-
tablish himself as an expert on this issue. 
However, the issue is, in large measure, a 
conceptual one. 35 years as a member of the 
N.Y.P.D. certainly entitle the author to 
some respect, but they do not qualify him as 
an expert on conceptual matters. 

For these reasons, then, I find the au-
thor's argument unacceptable. ~ 

Ralph H. Johnson 
University of Windsor