The Tyranny of Use and Consumption

Sor Juana's writing reveals her deep resistance to being treated instrumentally—as a tool for others' ambitions, a symbol of virtue, or a means to family honor. She asserted her right to exist as an end in herself, with autonomous intellectual pursuits. This perspective illuminates a fundamental injustice in how humans relate to animals: they are almost entirely framed as instruments. Cattle exist to be eaten, dolphins to entertain, primates to test medicines, chickens to produce eggs. This reduction to utility denies their intrinsic worth and independent interests. Sor Juana's insistence on her own dignity and agency models what we must extend to animals: recognition that they have projects, preferences, and reasons to live that are not about human benefit. The tyranny of use is not merely cruel but philosophically incoherent when applied to conscious beings. A creature with its own goals, relationships, and capacity for flourishing cannot coherently be treated as pure means. Justice requires we develop economies and practices that honor animal existence beyond human consumption, just as Sor Juana fought to be seen as more than useful to patriarchal structures.