Epistemic Justice for Animal Experience

Sor Juana's intellectual work occurred within systems that systematically dismissed women's knowledge and perspectives as unreliable or irrelevant. Contemporary animal ethics faces a parallel epistemic injustice: we have abundant scientific evidence of animal consciousness, suffering, and social complexity, yet this knowledge is often discounted in policy and practice. Farmers know animals experience pain; slaughterhouse workers know the terror they witness; pet owners know their companions' emotional lives. Yet these knowledges are marginalized in favor of economic interests and human-centered traditions. Epistemic justice means recognizing these sources of knowledge as legitimate and giving them authority in moral deliberation. Sor Juana advocated for women's intellectual contributions to be taken seriously; similarly, we must elevate the testimony of scientists, animal behaviorists, and those with direct experience of animals' lives. When we deny credibility to knowledge about animal suffering, we commit an epistemic injustice equivalent to dismissing women's intellectual authority. Justice requires that reliable knowledge about animals' capacity to suffer shapes our practices, not merely informing individual choice but driving institutional reform and legal protection.