"Me! Hear! My foreign ear–the sounds of welcome near!"
Some arguments are bad even though they’re sound and valid. "George Bush is a loon; therefore, George Bush is a loon." Assuming George Bush really is a loon, this argument is both sound and valid, but it’s still a bad argument; it begs the question.
Rule: Always form your argument from premises your opponent is willing to accept.
This rule suggests another rule: Always form your argument from premises you yourself are willing to accept.
Should the second rule be followed?
No, sometimes you want to give an argument from your opponent’s position to some consequence that they wouldn’t like. In such a case, I think it doesn’t matter that you yourself don’t accept the premises. It can be useful to show what follows from positions other than your own.
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Good point. There’d be an awful lot less philosophy out there if this rule were followed. But I wonder if that much good philosophy would be lost.
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Ha, yes, fair enough 🙂
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E.G. 
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