동물권 담론의 해체 - 법미학적·정신분석학적 성찰 - = Deconstructing of Animal Rights Discourse- Legal Aesthetic and Psychoanalytic Reflections -

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Animal discourse, which envisions a "new justice for animals," should not mimic modern human rights concepts. But rather it should critically reflect on and deconstruct modernity and be reconstructed within a postmodern context. Therefore, this article sequentially deconstructs animal discourse from legal aesthetics and psychoanalysis perspectives.
First, legal aesthetics enables a way of thinking that decenters law, arguing that justice must be constructed not only on rational and ethical dimensions but also on aesthetic ones. By examining the images represented in animal discourse from a legal aesthetic perspective, we can critically deconstruct the modernity underlying animal discourse. Second, psychoanalysis distances itself from modernity, which has limited humans to conscious and rational beings, and focuses on the human unconscious. This applies beyond the individual to social structures, and analyzing animal discourse through this allows us to more clearly reveal its structural limitations.
Currently, animal images often repeat the existing human-animal dichotomy and reproduce anthropocentric thinking, rather than fostering a shift in values ​​through ‘new’ aesthetic experiences. In particular, animal images reflect and reproduce key arguments of animal rights while simultaneously reinforcing them. This leads to animal discourse adopting a dichotomous structure of ‘protection and abuse’. From a psychoanalytic perspective, this risks inadvertently turning participants into ‘neurotic’ subjects, as the practice of ‘animal protection’ connects with the superego.
Ultimately, despite unprecedented participation and interest, the current structure of animal discourse, with its ‘rights-centered’ and ‘protection/abuse’ dichotomies, makes it difficult to ensure an end to animal abuse and exploitation, or even a healthy coexistence between humans and animals. If animal discourse truly dreams of a “new justice for animals,” it must move beyond the moral and normative control of human behavior through law, dismantling anthropocentric thinking and moving toward a “Animal Turn” where humans and animals can be revealed as mutually relevant subjects.