Intended Meaning
Shahrur holds that injustice is a deliberate, conscious act; it occurs only by someone who possesses free will and knows that what they are doing is wrong Therefore, one whose will has been taken away cannot be described as committing injustice, because injustice, in his view, is tied to responsible choice
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: value-based
- Movement of the argument: injustice does not occur except with free, conscious will.
- Key terms: injustice, freedom, will, responsibility, choice.
- Degree of centrality: pivotal.
This atom makes injustice tied to conscious choice rather than mere error, thereby establishing moral responsibility on the basis of freedom, and denying the description of injustice to one whose will has been stripped away.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The State and Society
- Freedom, the Human Being, and Responsibility
- Injustice
- Freedom
- Freedom regulates human action between volition and will
Basis
- Supporting text: «Injustice, for Shahrur, is not merely a passing mistake; it is a deliberate, conscious decision made with knowledge of its wrongness. The realization of injustice is conditioned on the existence of free will; one whose will is stripped away does not ظلم. Adam represents the first transition to humanity; therefore he was the first to be described as unjust when he knowingly violated the prohibition concerning the tree.»
Place of the basis in the book
- Book: the State and Society.
- Location: within the first section of the book, in the explanation of the relationship between will and injustice
- Type of basis: close evidence.
- Mark that helps verification: free will as an essential condition
- Reading note: this passage is suitable as evidence because it explicitly states that injustice occurs only with the existence of free will.
Degree of documentation
- Level: structurally documented
- Meaning of the level: the atom relies on more than one witness or on a clear composition of closely related expressions.
- Reason for classification: the text explicitly states the condition of free will for the realization of injustice.
- Limits of reading: the wording above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is quoted textually.
Its function in the book
Its function here is argumentative; it supports a larger conclusion in the chapter or prepares for it.
Related to
Editorial note
The atom defines a moral condition for the realization of injustice.