Loaded questions

Loaded question, also known as complex question, presupposition, "trick question", or plurium interrogationum (Latin, "of many questions"), is an informal fallacy or logical fallacy. It is committed when someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved. This fallacy is often used rhetorically, so that the question limits direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda. An example of this is the question "Are you still beating your wife/husband?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a spouse, and having beaten them 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.

Example: Are you still beating your wife?" A loaded question may be asked to trick the respondent into admitting something that the questioner believes to be true, and which may in fact be true. So the previous question is "loaded," whether or not the respondent has actually beaten his wife.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question