Rights as Recognition of Intrinsic Worth

Sor Juana defended women's intellectual and spiritual rights not based on what women could produce for society, but on their inherent worth as thinking, spiritual beings. This reframing is crucial for animal ethics. Traditional approaches ask: what are animals good for? How do they benefit humans? These utilitarian frames miss the point Sor Juana's thought suggests: beings with subjective experience have intrinsic worth deserving recognition. Animals deserve moral consideration not because they serve human purposes or resemble humans, but because they have their own projects, preferences, and capacity for suffering. This shift from instrumental to intrinsic value represents a fundamental justice reorientation. Sor Juana's insistence that women's minds have worth regardless of social utility models how we might approach animals—recognizing that a creature's right to not be tortured doesn't depend on its productivity or its relation to human interests. Rights, in this framework, acknowledge the independent reality and value of another being's existence.