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We
should start out by clarifying something. "Begging the question"
is entirely separate from "prompting the question" or "suggesting
the question." Many people incorrectly use the term "begging
the question" to refer to anything which makes people curious
or puts them in mind of a question they'd like answered. That's
wrong. Begging the question refers to the practice, in argument, of
assuming something which is material to the point you're trying
to make. Another way of putting this is that you beg the question
when the truth of your conclusion is assumed by the premises
that purport to prove it.
For
example: "We should not adopt gun control because unacceptable
impositions on our liberty cannot be tolerated." If the premise
of this argument, i.e. that "unacceptable impositions on our
liberty cannot be tolerated," is construed to be relevant to
the conclusion about gun control, then the premise must assume that
gun control is an unacceptable imposition. If that's the case,
then of course we shouldn't adopt it, but that argument begs
the question of whether or not gun control is a good thing.
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