Of Pain, Predators And Pleasure: Analysis
In "Of Pain, Predators and Pleasure" Walter Issacs considers the issue of whether fish feel pain when hooked by angler, and supports the idea that fish, experience extreme stress after being caught by human. Moreover, Issacs supports his claim by using a combination of personal experience and evidence obtained from scientific studies. Furthermore, he explains his pleasure in catching the fish by predator instinct compares the harm for the fish from fly fishers and the real sea pradators in favor of first, also emphasizes his contribution efforts in order to produce more fish as a result.
The author concludes that there is no way to avoif harming the creatures, but "recognising and respecting" the harm that everybody cause by catching the fish give anglers the credit of good intentions in this matter. Although Issacs sounds very persuasive when he skillfully appeals to emotional part of the issue and shows his sympathy for causing the fish fistress and "pain" as aresult of the fly fishing acts. However, "Of Pain, Predators and Pleasure" fails on logical and supportive levels which are essential for convincing an audience of author's claims.
First, the title of the article is very confusing for the reader as it's appear in the form of list and doesn't reflect the main idea of the article or author's position. Issacs starts his argumentation referring to the "published scientific studies" and at the same time it's only one reference to the authorative kind of evidence at the article, further the only support of the arguments is author's amateur, nonprofessional experience. Since Issacs only touches upon scientific studies, in order to support his arguments and make his article more vivid, he shoukd provide any of neurobiologists', behavioural ecologists' or fishery scientists' reserchers about considering problem. The reader can easily definr that the author doesn't explore the problem or topic scrupulously since he doesn't explain effectively any of his claims and uses a lot of identifinite characteristics. Furthermore, he dedicates three article paragraphs to justify fish torturing for his own pleasure. However, as niether scientist nor Greenpeace movement representative, he is not qualified to analyze such an issue whether fish fill pain as he can onky base his opinion on angler's personal experience. Furthermore, the evidence is not effective as it's based on author's subjective feelings and assumptions.
Next, Issacs doesn't provide his reders with an effective refutation for his counterargument which makes his article unbalanced and doubtful. Besides, he doesn't give the audience any definitions; especially, he can't decide how to define the "fish distress" which further leads to logical fallacies such as fals analogy and hasty generalisation. The conclusion is not reasonable and convincing because it doesn't state the author's position clearly. In conclusion, I agree and respect Issacs' idea about "recognizing and respecting" the harm human can cause the nature, but I disagree that there is no way to avoid harming the fish for fisher's pleasure, since it's the attempt to justify in some way human cruelty towards our environment. Because only man possesses a set of ethics and morals, and only man can choose to compromise those and act cruelly. The lion doesn't know he is cruel.
In support of mentioned above there are a lot of social researches and psychological tests, scientific examinations that show - cruelty to animals, "tortuer for pleasure"is a forerunner to violence against people.
