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The Fallacy of the bull arguments. Reflections by Jésus Mosterín

From the book "Live Animals", Editorial Debate, Madrid -1998

1) There are other atrocities. This is the first "argument" that spring always the bull. They do not defend the run, nor that it is a savage cruel, but insist that is not the only cruelty that is practiced in this world. Then refer to the massacre of Jews by the Nazis, or the Tutsis in Rwanda, or children who die of hunger. Obviously, all these things are horrible, and even more unfortunate that the bullfights, but they have nothing to do with the matter. It is as if a murder defendant to defend himself by saying that more people killed Hitler or Stalin. It would probably be true, but not come to mind, nothing would change in the status of a possible crime.
2) The run is traditional. Once pointed out the irrelevance of the fact that there are other atrocities, provided a middling postmodern anthropologist takes to the direct defense of the run with the alleged grounds that it is traditional. Elsewhere will be cruel, but not in Spain, because here everything is traditional and traditional is good by definition. In the world, they say there is no objective, nothing is truth or lie, nothing hurts or glad, it depends solely on the traditions of each tribe. Bullfighting is a English tradition of the tribe and therefore can not criticize without betraying the essence of the tribe. It is curious that we still hear calls between uncritical ethnocentrism and Cave, inviting us to close ranks in defense of the most sinister aspects of our collective tradition, as tradition and ethnicity were above criticism and rationality. However traditional it was, the Chinese custom of foot binding and maim women was a savage, and fortunately ended up being criticized and suppressed. It is also a custom of many savage African tribes cut the clitoris girls when they reached puberty and other cruel and degrading practices applied to men, women and animals. The burning of heretics was long traditional and terrorism is traditional among the terrorists. Blindly accept all parts of the tradition is to deny the very possibility of cultural progress.
3) The bulls do not suffer. This never say the fighters, because they know that is totally false, but I usually drop some ignorant bull. Neurologists know not only the bull is capable of suffering, because the neural structures of the diencephalon and limbic system are similar to ours, but sometimes use it as a model in studies of pain. In fact, all places of pain and the neural mechanisms of pain transmission, including neurotransmitters, are virtually identical in all mammals, so it's not worth more emphasis on the obvious. (....)