Can Bullfighting ever be justified?
This essay will critique the theory put forward by Peter Singer, using the example of Bullfighting to see if his theory is valid. Peter Singer argues that human and non-human animals should be considered equally if not necessarily treated equally. He is a preference utilitarian, who would consider animals to be moral agents, and therefore includes them in his calculations for the greater good. In his work Singer strongly puts forward the idea against Speciesism, which put simply is giving one species preferential treatment, purely because they are from that species, much likes sexism or racism. This essay will apply the prism of Singer’s theory to look at the animal ethics issues of bull fighting and will
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To establish this, he believes animals should be considered in the calculations. Singer, much like Bentham, asks the question, “can they suffer?” if it is deemed these animals are capable of suffering, they are sentient and as such, they should be considered. Singer argues those sentient animal’s interests should be considered equally to those that are non-human animals. He does not go as far as to say that human and non-human animals should receive the same treatment, just equal consideration. Singer makes the argument that the interests of the Bull’s should be given the same consideration as the matador and the crowd. It is widely accepted both the matador and the bull have an interest not to die. He is not aware what it means to die, so can he have it in his interests not to die? Is it an extension of our own interests to assume that the bull also does not want to die? Anthropomorphising in this way might be an accurate representation of the bull’s desire to live, however, it may be misguided. Frey extrapolates this argument further to suggest as we cannot be sure of the bull’s interests, and as it has no ability to claim moral rights, its interests do not matter. If they cannot think about future aspects of their lives, can it be in their interest not to die, if they have interests at all? This is in direct contradiction to