Justice as Recognition of Unequal Starting Points

Sor Juana faced barriers to education, publication, and intellectual authority based on her sex and station—barriers her male counterparts never encountered. She could not be ordained, hold academic position, or publish under her own name without difficulty. Libertarian justice must grapple with this reality: formal equality is insufficient when prior injustice has systematically denied some people the ability to acquire property, develop talents, and exercise freedom. Sor Juana's life demonstrates that true justice requires recognition of how institutional and cultural exclusions created unequal starting points. This does not necessarily demand redistribution, but it demands acknowledgment that freedom and property rights cannot be fairly evaluated without accounting for prior violations. Her tradition suggests that justice includes: removing ongoing barriers, acknowledging historical injustices, and ensuring genuine equal access to the means of building one's own property and exercising autonomy. Without this, libertarian principles benefit only those already advantaged by prior injustices. Sor Juana insisted on her right to compete as a mind equal to any male scholar—demanding that justice recognize and remedy the systematic exclusions that had attempted to deny her that capacity.