Challenging Utility as Moral Measure

Sor Juana challenged the utility-based arguments used to dismiss women's intellectual pursuits: we are told women should be educated only insofar as it serves husbands or churches. This framework, which measures worth by external usefulness, applies to how we justify animal exploitation. We use animals when profitable, discard them when convenient, and justify all treatment through human benefit. Sor Juana's assertion of knowledge as valuable in itself—worthy of pursuit even without practical application—directly contests this reduction. Beings possess value not because they serve us but because they exist as conscious creatures with their own purposes. A wolf has worth not because it provides sport for hunters or because its ecosystem service benefits humans, but simply because it is. This concept transforms animal rights from calculated cost-benefit analysis into recognition of intrinsic dignity. Sor Juana's intellectual tradition suggests that the most profound moral advance comes when we cease viewing entities merely as means to our ends and recognize them as ends in themselves, possessing worth independent of utility.