The Right to Refuse Obedience

Sor Juana's ultimate act was refusal: she stopped writing despite pressure to continue, but more importantly, she refused the demand that she abandon her intellectual life entirely. She rejected the Church's claim to total obedience over her mind and time. In Libertarian justice, the right to refuse obedience is bedrock. If you do not own yourself—if you cannot say no to commands—you cannot own property. Obedience, enforced or coerced, is a form of servitude. Sor Juana's example clarifies that this right extends beyond avoiding violence: it includes the right to refuse demands on your attention, intellect, and creativity. The Church did not merely forbid her from writing; it demanded she redirect her entire mental energy toward approved tasks. Her refusal, even when it cost her dearly, asserted a basic principle: your own mind is not state property, not Church property, not even family property. You own it, and the right to refuse unjust commands flows from that ownership. In practice, this means protecting dissent, protecting unconventional choices, and protecting the right to live according to your own values rather than institutional demands.