Loaded question - wikipedia Loaded question A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question that contains a controversial or unjustified assumption ( e.g., a presumption of guilt ). Aside from being an informal fallacy depending on usage, such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool : 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, he will admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed. The fallacy relies upon context for its effect : the fact that a question presupposes something does not in itself make the question fallacious. 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. This fallacy should be distinguished from that of begging the question ( not to be confused with raising the question ), which offers a premise whose plausibility depends on the truth of the proposition asked about, and which is often an implicit restatement of the proposition. Contents 1 Defense 2 Historical examples 3 See also 4 References 5 External links 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 have never beaten my wife ''. This removes the ambiguity of the expected response, therefore nullifying the tactic. However, the asker is likely to respond by accusing the one who answers of dodging the question. Historical examples Madeleine Albright ( U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. ) fell into a trap of answering a loaded question ( and later regretted not challenging it instead ) on 60 Minutes on 12 May 1996. Lesley Stahl asked, regarding the effects of UN sanctions against Iraq, `` We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it ? '' Madeleine Albright : `` I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it. '' She later wrote of this response : I must have been crazy ; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it... As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong... I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one 's fault but my own. For another example, the 2009 referendum on corporal punishment in New Zealand asked : `` 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 Complex question Entailment ( pragmatics ) False dilemma Gotcha journalism Implicature Leading question Mu ( negative ) Presupposition Suggestive question List of fallacies References Jump up ^ Gregory Bassham ( 2004 ). Critical Thinking. McGraw - Hill. ISBN 9780072879599. ^ Jump up to : Douglas N. Walton, Informal logic : a handbook for critical argumentation, Cambridge University Press, 1989, ISBN 0 - 521 - 37925 - 3, pp. 36 -- 37 Jump up ^ `` Fallacy : Begging the Question ''. The Nizkor Project. Retrieved January 22, 2008. Jump up ^ Carroll, Robert Todd. The Skeptic 's Dictionary. John Wiley & Sons. p. 51. ISBN 0 - 471 - 27242 - 6. Jump up ^ Layman, C. Stephen ( 2003 ). The Power of Logic. p. 158. Jump up ^ Douglas E. Hill ( 2002 ). `` Albright 's Blunder ''. Irvine Review. Archived from the original on 2003 - 06 - 03. Retrieved 2008 - 01 - 04. Jump up ^ Albright, Madeleine ( 2003 ). Madam Secretary : A Memoir. p. 275. ISBN 0 - 7868 - 6843 - 0. Jump up ^ `` Anti-smacking debate goes to referendum ''. 3 News. June 15, 2009. Retrieved 2010 - 02 - 03. External links Fallacy : Loaded Questions and Complex Claims Critical Thinking exercises. San Jose State University. Logical Fallacy : Loaded Question The Fallacy Files Informal fallacies Equivocation Equivocation False equivalence False attribution Quoting out of context Loki 's Wager No true Scotsman Reification Question - begging fallacies Circular reasoning / Begging the question Loaded language ( Leading question ) Compound question / Loaded question No true Scotsman Correlative - based fallacies False dilemma ( Perfect solution fallacy ) Denying the correlative Suppressed correlative Fallacies of illicit transference Composition Division Deductive fallacies Accident Converse accident Inductive fallacies Anecdotal evidence Sampling bias ( Cherry picking McNamara fallacy ) Base rate fallacy / Conjunction fallacy Double counting False analogy Hasty generalization / Slothful induction Misleading vividness Overwhelming exception Vagueness / ambiguity Accent Amphibology Continuum fallacy / Sorites paradox False precision Moving the goalposts Slippery slope Questionable cause Animistic ( Furtive ) Correlation proves causation ( Cum hoc ergo propter hoc ) Gambler 's ( inverse ) Post hoc Regression Single cause Slippery slope Texas sharpshooter Third - cause Wrong direction List of fallacies Other types of fallacy Philosophy portal Fallacies of relevance Ad nauseam Argument from repetition Argumentum ad ignorantiam Argument from ignorance Appeal to the stone / Proof by assertion Ignoratio elenchi Irrelevant conclusion Argument from silence Invincible ignorance Moralistic / Naturalistic Non sequitur Rationalization Red herring Appeal to worse problems Two wrongs make a right Special pleading Straw man Cliché I 'm entitled to my opinion Appeals to emotion Fear Flattery Novelty Pity Ridicule Think of the children In - group favoritism Invented here / Not invented here Island mentality Parade of horribles Wisdom of repugnance Spite Genetic fallacies Ad hominem Abusive Association reductio ad Hitlerum Godwin 's law reductio ad Stalinum Circumstantial Appeal to motive Bulverism Poisoning the well Tone Tu quoque Authority Accomplishment Ipse dixit Poverty / Wealth Etymology Nature Tradition / Novelty Chronological snobbery Appeals to consequences Argumentum ad baculum Appeal to force Wishful thinking Other appeals Argument to moderation Popularity List of fallacies Other types of fallacy Philosophy portal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Loaded_question&oldid=799273428 '' Categories : Informal fallacies Talk Contents About Wikipedia Català Deutsch Ελληνικά Español فارسی עברית Lietuvių Magyar मराठी Nederlands 日本 語 Polski Русский Suomi Svenska Türkçe 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 6 September 2017, at 18 : 28. 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Question: when did you stop beating your wife is an example of which logical fallacy
Answer: informal fallacy