Epistemic Justice and the Right to Be Heard

Sor Juana's credibility as a scholar and thinker was constantly undermined by her gender and position as a woman in a male-dominated ecclesiastical hierarchy. She was denied the epistemic authority that male scholars took for granted—the assumption that their ideas were worth hearing. Epistemic justice, in this framework, is a property right: you possess expertise and the right to have it recognized. When institutions systematically discount your testimony or ideas based on identity rather than merit, they steal your property in knowledge. In Libertarian justice, this matters because property claims rest on being heard and recognized. If the market, the public, or institutions refuse to credit your expertise because of bias, you cannot freely exchange it or benefit from it. Sor Juana fought for this recognition throughout her life—asserting that her scientific and theological observations deserved serious engagement. Protecting epistemic justice means removing barriers (social, institutional, legal) that prevent certain groups from claiming ownership of their own knowledge and having it valued.