Essay prompt : In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun.
Do animals feel pain?
I asked my friend a simple question: "Do animals feel pain?" He thought for a second, making sure it was not a trick question, and answered "Ya obviously they feel pain." So I continued "Then why do people fish?" I asked this because if people knew that animals can get hurt and can feel pain, I could not understand why they would do things that hurt animals in the first place, given that they would not do the same thing to a human being.
The method of fishing I am talking about is angling, where a hook is attached to a line and fishes are baited to bite the hook. The problem with angling is it invariably causes a lot of pain to the fish because when the fish bites the bait, the sharp hook pierces through the roof of the fish's mouth and the struggling fish would be dragged with a huge force towards the angler. For fishermen who fish for recreation or sport, they get their satisfaction or pleasure at the expense of pain and suffering in fishes. Fishing is a relatively common activity despite how I make it out to be. In the UK alone, there are roughly 6 million anglers. Therefore I cannot fathom how such a mindlessly cruel act can have such prevalence in our modern world.
Everyday, unnecessary or replaceable human activities cause a great amount of pain and suffering in animals. Animals suffer when they are hunted for recreation, when they are skinned to make coats or tote bags and when they are used to test superfluous cosmetics and drugs. It is estimated that 25 million animals are used every year for laboratory procedures in the US. I am sure the majority of people would tell me that yes animals can feel pain. Yet I do not understand why in so many ways we act as though we believe that animals do not feel pain, or worse, that it is okay for animals other than human beings to be in pain.
There are many arguments that assert that it is not wrong to use animals for human ends. Some of them economic, some of them environmental and some of them divine but what is common in most of these arguments are they do not even consider the fact that animals suffer. The arguments that do often have shaky grounds. For instance, some anglers argue that fishes do not feel pain. They cite research that shows that fishes have a different neurological anatomy to humans, making them insusceptible to pain. The problem with this argument is the research in this area has been ambiguous and largely inconclusive, and it is hard to imagine that grievous injury caused by angling is really painless. Moreover, if it turns out that we are wrong, I would rather we are wrong about the fact that fishes feel pain than they do not.
On another note, it is relieving to know that our society is progressing forward in using laws and justice to protect animals. In 2008, laws were amended in Switzerland to mandate that fishermen must undergo training on humane treatment of fishes after they are caught. In 2011, SPCA proposed to the Ministry of National Development in Singapore to make failing to take care of the welfare of pets a criminal offence among other amendments to animal protection laws.
The fundamental premise that allows our society to treat animals differently is the belief that animals are different from humans. I never believed that humans are completely and unequivocally different from animals. Had I been born in a society that has neither language nor advanced civilization I would not grow to have the abilities I have now. I was not biologically acquainted with language or the ability to use a computer. When I grew up, I learnt that our societal norm inclines us to help the underprivileged and the handicapped. Hence I naturally felt that we needed to help our less advanced animal counterparts by the same principle.
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I tried to express my belief about the state of animals as fully as possible in this essay. Please comment on whether my essay answers the question, the organisation of the essay, how you feel about it etc. Help me check for any grammar mistakes I might have missed or don't know about. Thanks in advance.
It's good if we have your prompt here to give more meaningful comments. Is this for "something that goes unnoticed"
Therefore I cannot fathom how such a mindlessly cruel act can have such prevalence in our modern world.
I am fully with you... I too have often asked this question from many people who does fishing for pleasure. It's nothing but selfishness.
The problem with this argument is
thethat research in this area has been ambiguous and largely inconclusive.
On another note, it is relieving to know that our society is progressing forward in using laws and justice to protect animals.
... progressing and forward have close meanings and hence progress makes forward redundant.
The essay is well written, but I believe the tone is a little too dark. Of course the prompt places the student in an uneasy corner, where presenting a cheery and happy response would be disastrous. I would skip less on the specifics (such as angling--I equate the paragraph as watching surgery on TV, too much for me to bare!). My suggestion would be to remain somewhat somber, yet optimistically reflective. Don't just keep mentioning how animals are haunted or fishes are angled, rather juxtapose those examples with instances that reveal the benefits of pain, for example (survival instincts, etc). You don't have to add inappropriate humor or facetious references, but instead show a different side of pain that, linguistically, is not so hard on the reader.
Overall I loved the structure and flow of the essay. Syntactically, I have no complaints.
dumi: the prompt is in my post. It is very vague though so I chose to put the question on my mind into this essay. Thanks for the corrections I'll edit my essay later.
henrycastillo: I thought my essay wasn't fun too. But I can't help it, I don't know how to write fun essays or fun stories for that matter. It wasn't so much the essay prompt. It was more because this is the way I genuinely think.
dumi: the prompt is in my post. It is very vague though so I chose to put the question on my mind into this essay. Thanks for the corrections I'll edit my essay later.
OMG.... I don't know how I missed it.... Well it is on the top of your essay and there is no way one can miss it out. I hop from one thread to another and may be I was too tired when I had a look at your essay to make such silly error. Sorry about that :D
Ok....let me now go through your essay having the prompt in mind :D
I asked my friend a simple question: "Do animals feel pain?"
I think the answer for this question is too obvious and therefore I like if you have a small shift with regard to your question.
Why do people kill animals knowing that it would cause them a lot of pain?This is just a suggestion, you can present it more creatively.
