Defending the Intellectual Dignity of Consumers

Sor Juana's famous response to the Bishop defending her intellectual rights insisted that all humans deserve respect for their rational capacity. In ethical consumption, this means trusting consumers as capable of understanding complexity and making nuanced choices, not protecting them through simplified labels or top-down mandates. While systems like certifications help, they can also become paternalistic—assuming consumers are too confused to investigate themselves. Sor Juana's model suggests instead creating conditions for consumer agency: transparent information, access to knowledge, and trust in people's capacity to reason. This rejects both corporate manipulation that infantilizes consumers and ethical purists who claim only they know the right choices. Ethical consumption grounded in dignity means respecting each person's investigation, experience, and conscience. We provide knowledge and access, then trust people to make choices aligned with their values. This honors the intellectual dignity that Sor Juana fought to establish.