Rights as Intellectual Self-Preservation

Sor Juana defended her relentless pursuit of knowledge as essential to her flourishing—not a luxury but a fundamental necessity of her being. She understood rights not as abstract privileges but as conditions necessary for a creature to develop according to its nature. For animals, this translates into recognizing that autonomy, social connection, and environmental complexity are not optional but integral to their flourishing. A bird needs flight, a whale needs ocean depths, a pack animal needs community—these are not amenities but expressions of their essential nature. Sor Juana's insistence on her right to intellectual life suggests that animal rights should guarantee conditions for animals to express their characteristic capacities. This moves beyond preventing cruelty toward actively enabling creatures to live according to their nature. Rights become the scaffolding that allows each being—human or animal—to become fully itself.