Loaded question

Aloaded questionis a form ofcomplex questionthat contains a controversialassumption(e.g., apresumption of guilt).

Such questions may be used as arhetoricaltool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda.The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, they will admit to having beaten their wife at some time in the past. Thus, these facts arepresupposedby the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and thefallacy of many questionshas been committed.The fallacy relies upon context for its effect: the fact that a question presupposes something does not in itself make the questionfallacious.Only when some of these presuppositions are not necessarily agreed to by the person who is asked the question does the argument containing them become fallacious.Hence, the same question may be loaded in one context, but not in the other. For example, the previous question would not be loaded if it were asked during a trial in which the defendant had already admitted to beating his wife. Thisinformal fallacyshould be distinguished from that ofbegging the question,which offers apremisewhose plausibility depends on the truth of thepropositionasked about, and which is often an implicit restatement of the proposition.

Defense

A common way out of this argument is not to answer the question (e.g. with a simple 'yes' or 'no'), but to challenge the assumption behind the question. To use an earlier example, a good response to the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" would be "I haveneverbeaten my wife ".This removes the ambiguity of the expected response, therefore nullifying the tactic. However, the asker may respond to a challenge by accusing the one who answers ofdodging the question.

Historical examples

Diogenes Laërtiuswrote a brief biography of the philosopherMenedemusin which he relates that:

[O]nce when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off beating his father, he said, "I have not beaten him, and I have not left off;" and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt by answering explicitly yes or no, "It would be absurd," he rejoined, "to comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance."

For another example, the2009 referendum on corporal punishment in New Zealandasked: "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?" Murray Edridge, of Barnardos New Zealand, criticized the question as "loaded and ambiguous" and claimed "the question presupposes that smacking is a part of good parental correction".

See also

• Barber paradox
• Complex question
• Entailment (pragmatics)
• False dilemma
• Gotcha journalism
• Implicature
• Leading question
• Mu (negative)
• Presupposition
• Suggestive question
• List of fallacies

External links

• Fallacy: Loaded Questions and Complex ClaimsCritical Thinking exercises. San Jose State University.
• Logical Fallacy: Loaded QuestionArchived2020-12-11 at theWayback MachineThe Fallacy Files
• What Is The Loaded Question Fallacy? Definition and ExamplesArchived2021-05-11 at theWayback MachineFallacy in Logic