This article analyses the use of images in the discourse of animal ethics in an attempt to see how visual cultural studies can contribute to the debate in environmental philosophy. Drawing on Derrida's critique of the utilitarian theory of animal liberation and Mitchell's analysis of iconoclasm in visual culture theories, the article argues that an iconoclastic strategy of visual representation in the discourse of animal ethics undermines the very objective of such an ethical theory. Two case studies — Peter Singer's animal liberation and J.B. Callicott's land ethic — illustrate an implacable tendency to essentialize the visual and animal identity.
Adams, C.J. (2006) `An Animal Manifesto: Gender, Identity, and Vegan-Feminism in the Twenty-first Century', Parallax12(1): 120-8.
2.
Baker, S. (1993) Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity and Representation . Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
3.
Baker, S. (2000) The Postmodern Animal. London : Reaktion Books.
4.
Bal, M. (2003) `Visual Essentialism and the Object of Visual Culture' , Journal of Visual Culture2(1): 5-32.
5.
Berger, J. (1980) About Looking. New York: Vintage International.
6.
Bloor, D. (1999) `Anti-Latour', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science30(1): 81-112.
7.
Bousé, D. (2003) `False Intimacy: Close-ups and Viewer Involvement in Wildlife Films', Visual Studies18(2): 123-32.
8.
Brady, E. (2006) `Aesthetics in Practice: Valuing the Natural World' , Environmental Values15: 277-91.
9.
Braun, B. and N. Castree (1998) `The Construction of Nature and the Nature of Construction: Analytical and Political Tools for Building Survivable Futures', in Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millennium, pp. 3-42. London and New York: Routledge.
10.
Burt, J. (2001) `The Illumination of the Animal Kingdom: The Role of Light and Electricity in Animal Representation', Society & Animals9(3): 203-28.
11.
Calarco, M. (2004) `Deconstruction Is Not Vegetarianism: Humanism, Subjectivity, and Animal Ethics', Continental Philosophy Review37: 175-201.
Callicott, J.B. (1989) `Leopold's Land Aesthetic', in In Defence of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, pp. 239-47. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
14.
Callicott, J.B. (1998) `"Back Together Again" Again', Environmental Values7: 461-75.
15.
Callicott, J.B. (2003) `The Case against Moral Pluralism', in A. Light and H. Rolston III (eds) Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, pp. 203-19. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell .
16.
Callicott, J.B. (2005a [1988]) `Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again', in M.E. Zimmerman et al. (eds) Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, 4th edn, pp. 130-8. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
17.
Callicott, J.B. (2005b) `Introduction to Part 1: "Environmental Ethics"' , in M.E. Zimmerman, J.B. Callicott, G. Sessions , K.J. Warren and J. Clark (eds) Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, 4th edn, pp. 5-15 . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
18.
Derrida, J. (2002) `The Animal that Therefore I Am (More to Follow)' , Critical Inquiry28(2): 369-418.
19.
Derrida, J. (2003) `And Say the Animal Responded?', in C. Wolfe (ed.) Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal, pp. 121-46. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
20.
Haraway, D. (1989) Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York and London: Routledge.
21.
Jamieson, D. (1999) `Singer and the Practical Ethics Movement', in D. Jamieson (ed.) Singer and His Critics, pp. 1-17. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
22.
Jamieson, D. (2002 [1998]) `Animal Liberation is an Environmental Ethic', in Morality's Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature, pp. 197-212. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
23.
Jay, M. (2002) `Cultural Relativism and the Visual Turn', Journal of Visual Culture1(3): 267-78.
24.
Kalof, L. and A. Fitzgerald (2003) `Reading the Trophy: Exploring the Display of Dead Animals in Hunting Magazines', Visual Studies18(2): 112-22.
25.
Latour, B. (1998) `To Modernise or Ecologise? That is the Question' , in B. Braun and N. Castree (eds) Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millennium, pp. 221-42. London and New York: Routledge.
26.
Leopold, A. (1970[1949]) A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books.
27.
Macnaghten, P. and J. Urry. (1998) Contested Natures. London: SAGE.
28.
Manghani, S.,A. Piper and J. Simons (eds) ( 2006) Images: A Reader. London: SAGE.
29.
Mitchell, W.J.T. (1987) Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
30.
Naess, A. (1989) Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press.
31.
Naess, A. (2003) `The Deep Ecology Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects', in A. Light and H. Rolston III (eds) Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, pp. 262-74. Malden, MA and Oxford : Blackwell.
32.
O'Neil, R. (2000) `Animal Liberation versus Environmentalism: The Care Solution', Environmental Ethics22: 183-90.
33.
O'Neill, J. (2003) `The Varieties of Intrinsic Values', in A. Light and H. Rolston III (eds) Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, pp. 131-42 . Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
34.
Parsons, G. and A. Carlson (2004) `New Formalism and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism62(4): 363-76.
35.
Regan, T. (2005) `Animal Rights, Human Wrongs', in M.E. Zimmerman et al. (eds) Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, 4th edn, pp. 39-52. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
36.
Rolston III, H. (2005 [1991]) `Challenges in Environmental Ethics', in M.E. Zimmerman et al. (eds) Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology , 4th edn, pp. 82-101. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Singer, P. (1999) `A Response to Solomon', in D. Jamieson (ed.) Singer and His Critics, pp. 280-6. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell .
39.
Singer, P. (2002[1975]) Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins.
40.
Singer, P. (2004) `Preface', in M. Calarco and P. Atterton (eds) Animal Philosophy: Essential Readings in Continental Thought, pp. xi-xiii. London and New York: Continuum .
41.
Solomon, R.C. (1999) `Peter Singer's Expanding Circle: Compassion and the Liberation of Ethics', in D. Jamieson (ed.) Singer and His Critics, pp. 64-84. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell .
42.
Sontag, S. (1983) `The Image-World', in A Susan Sontag Reader, pp. 349-67. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
43.
Soper, K. (2000) `Future Culture: Realism, Humanism, and the Politics of Nature', Radical Philosophy102: 17-26.
44.
Watanabe, M. (ed.) (2000) Dobutsu-en to iu Media [Zoo as Media]. Tokyo: Seikyu-sha. Williams, R. (1985) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
45.
Wilson, A. (1992) `Looking at the Non-human: Nature Movies and TV' , in The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez, pp. 117-55. Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
46.
Wolfe, C. (2003) `In the Shadow of Wittgenstein's Lion: Language, Ethics, and the Question of the Animal', in C. Wolfe (ed.) Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal, pp. 1-56. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
47.
Zwart, H. (1997) `What is an Animal? A Philosophical Reflection on the Possibility of a Moral Relationship with Animals', Environmental Values6: 377-92.
