In a debate club environment.
In: Other
‘Begging the question’ is when your chosen assumptions/definitions give the desired result, but those assumptions are not actually agreed upon. Therefore, you’ve basically assumed or smuggled in your conclusion into your premises.
For instance, in a debate about abortion, someone might say:
1. Murder is the killing of human life.
2. A fetus is human life.
3. Abortion kills a fetus.
4. Therefore abortion is murder.
This is a deductively valid argument, in that conclusion (statement 4) does follow from the premesise #1-#3. However, do the people you are arguing against believe all 3 assumptions? Almost certainly not, and so you’re not actually making a useful point.
To show both sides, some pro-choice people might believe something closer to:
1. Murder is the killing of a human person.
2. A fetus is not a person.
3. Abortion kills a fetus.
4. Therefore abortion kills a non-person (i.e. it is not equal to murder).
This is also deductively valid, but similarly fails to make any useful point.
If either person were to present this argument to the opposing side, they are ‘begging the question’, because premise 1&2 are actually the core of the disagreement, but they assume them and then make their argument anyway.
This has no persuasive power, because *obviously* people who define murder differently, and concieve (pun not intended) of fetuses differently, will disagree on whether it is murder!
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