The Right to Refuse Obedience

Sor Juana's ultimate refusal to comply with the Archbishop's demands that she stop writing represented an assertion of what libertarians call negative liberty—the right to say no to authority. Though she eventually made a public renunciation of her intellectual work under severe pressure, her decades of resistance demonstrated that the right to refuse obedience is fundamental to freedom and property rights. In libertarian justice, no authority—religious, governmental, familial, or institutional—has the right to demand unquestioning compliance. The ability to refuse is what transforms a relationship from consensual to coercive, from voluntary exchange to expropriation. When institutions claim the right to command obedience in matters of conscience, they are effectively expropriating individuals' right to self-determination. Sor Juana's example illuminates how the right to refuse obedience connects directly to property justice: if you cannot refuse to obey, you do not own yourself or your labor. Libertarian justice requires robust protection for those who exercise this fundamental right.