Intellectual Lineage as Inherited Property

Sor Juana taught and mentored younger scholars, explicitly passing her intellectual methods and interests to others. She understood that one's life work could live on through students and readers, creating a lineage of thought and practice. This represents intellectual property in a non-commercial sense: the transmission of ways of thinking, questioning, and creating. Libertarian justice must protect the right to designate intellectual heirs—to choose who will carry forward one's work, critique, and tradition. This operates differently from market copyright but serves similar functions: honoring creator intention and ensuring that intellectual work is not stolen or perverted. Sor Juana's tradition suggests that freedom includes control over one's legacy, the ability to teach and transmit knowledge to chosen learners, and protection against exploitation of one's ideas by those who did not labor to develop them. In modern contexts, this principle protects not just patents and copyrights but mentorship relationships, the transmission of craft knowledge, and the integrity of intellectual traditions against appropriation and distortion.