Rights-Based Consumption: Beyond Individual Choice

Sor Juana's advocacy was fundamentally about rights—the right to education, to intellectual freedom, to dignity—not about individual virtue or purity. This reframes ethical consumption away from a guilt-based model of personal morality toward a rights-based framework focused on systemic justice. Rights-based consumption asks: Do the companies we support respect workers' rights to fair wages, safe conditions, and freedom of association? Do they respect indigenous peoples' rights to their land and knowledge? Do they respect environmental protections that ensure future generations' rights to a livable planet? This approach acknowledges that individual consumers cannot achieve perfection in an unjust system, but we can participate in or refuse to support systems that violate fundamental rights. It moves beyond the burden placed on consumers to instead demand corporate accountability and systemic change, recognizing that true ethical consumption requires transforming the systems that create exploitation in the first place.