Expanding Personhood Beyond the Human

Sor Juana fought against being reduced to her instrumental functions—as a nun, as a woman, as a colonial subject—insisting on her full humanity and intellectual personhood. Her arguments for women's dignity applied because personhood cannot be measured by utility to others but exists inherently in conscious, rational beings. This framework directly applies to animals: personhood and moral standing should not depend on usefulness to humans. A cow is not a person because it produces milk; it is a being with interests, preferences, and a subjective experience that deserves moral consideration. Contemporary philosophy increasingly recognizes certain animals as non-human persons: great apes, elephants, cetaceans, and others demonstrate consciousness, self-awareness, and complex social bonds. Sor Juana's intellectual legacy validates the work of expanding personhood categories to include these beings. This expansion does not require that animals be human-like but that they be recognized as centers of experience with inherent value, just as Sor Juana insisted about women: different from institutionally dominant groups, but equally worthy of fundamental respect.