Epistemological Justice for Animal Experience

Sor Juana insisted that direct observation and personal experience were valid sources of knowledge, challenging authorities who dismissed her insights because of her gender and status. Epistemological justice for animals means recognizing that their way of knowing and experiencing reality—through sensation, instinct, memory, and social learning—constitutes legitimate knowledge we should attend to, rather than dismissing as mere instinct. When we study animal behavior, we often interpret it through purely human-centered frameworks, missing what animals themselves might teach us about survival, cooperation, and adaptation. Sor Juana's model of intellectual humility—admitting the limits of imposed doctrine and valuing direct evidence—suggests we should learn to listen to animal experience on its own terms. This means incorporating ethologists' findings while also developing practices that honor the animal's own perspective as a source of truth about what matters for their wellbeing.