Rights as Recognition of Intrinsic Worth

Sor Juana's struggle was fundamentally about recognition: she insisted that women possessed intrinsic worth deserving respect, not merely instrumental value as wives or mothers. This concept applies similar reasoning to animals. Rights frameworks often struggle with animals because they assume rights require reciprocal social contracts or utility calculations. This concept instead grounds animal rights in intrinsic worth—the simple fact of being a sentient, experiencing creature possessing value independent of human benefit. A cow has worth as a cow, not merely as a milk producer. A wild animal has value in its own existence, not as a resource or ecosystem service provider. This shift from instrumental to intrinsic grounding is radical: it means some things cannot be traded away for convenience or profit. Sor Juana insisted this way about intellectual pursuit and human dignity; she refused frameworks that valued women only for their practical utility. Applying this principle to animals means recognizing that some interests—freedom from torture, opportunity for natural behavior, basic welfare—are not negotiable simply because humans would benefit from violating them. Rights as recognition of intrinsic worth creates space for animal interests to genuinely matter in moral deliberation, not as secondary concerns but as primary claims worthy of deep respect.