Embodied Knowledge and Sensory Justice

Sor Juana's intellectual life was embodied: she wrote about the body, lived in and through her body despite religious traditions that denied its value, and refused to accept that mind could be entirely separated from flesh. This embodied philosophy illuminates animal ethics profoundly. Animals know their world through sensation: touch, taste, smell, pain, pleasure. This embodied knowledge is as real as human intellectual knowledge. Factory-farmed animals experience profound sensory injustice: confinement that prevents natural movement, separation from sensory experiences essential to their nature, and intense physical suffering. Sor Juana's insistence on the reality and importance of embodied experience suggests that sensory suffering must be central to moral consideration. An animal confined in a cage experiences not abstract deprivation but concrete bodily harm. Recognition of animals as embodied beings with legitimate sensory experiences transforms how we approach their moral status. Their bodies matter. Their sensations matter. The pleasure of natural movement, the companionship of their own kind, the freedom to engage their senses—these are not luxuries but fundamental aspects of living well.