Justice as Restoration of Voice and Agency

Sor Juana's vision of justice centered on restoration—freeing minds to think, restoring dignity to the dismissed, enabling people to claim agency over their own lives. She understood that true justice requires not just denouncing oppression but actively rebuilding capacities for self-determination. For animals, this framework extends beyond negative rights (freedom from harm) to positive restoration: creating conditions where animals can exercise their natural behaviors, make choices within their capacities, and live according to their own natures rather than human designs. The concept recognizes that animals have been systematically stripped of agency—bred for specific traits, confined to unnatural conditions, denied any voice in decisions affecting them. Justice requires restoration: sanctuaries that enable natural behaviors, wild spaces free from human control, research that honors animal subjects' wellbeing. Sor Juana's tradition insists that genuine moral progress means actively restoring what exploitation has taken—not just ending cruelty but rebuilding the conditions for authentic animal flourishing and the exercise of whatever forms of agency and choice their consciousness permits.