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Glite Dictionary
🧠 Will-focused 🧑‍🎓 Will-centered thinker
voluntarist

voluntarist

9.7
Seeing human or God's will as the main cause of actions and choices
  • adjective
  • /ˈvɑːlənˌtɛrɪst/
  • Formal
translation icon : voluntarista
  • In her speech, she highlighted a voluntarist view that focuses on personal will in shaping society.

Examples

  • The philosopher emphasized a voluntarist approach to ethics, where individual choices shape moral values.

  • This difficulty stems from Marx's failure to articulate his objectivist account of resistance, which privileges material structures, and his voluntarist explanation, which prioritizes subjective action and interpretation.

    Academic text (1994)

  • I would like to defend the narrative conception of the person as against the voluntarist conception.

  • The most voluntarist lines of Gramscian thought proclaimed a popular class autonomy and resistance that were difficult to substantiate.

    Academic text (1996)

  • The religious leader presented a voluntarist perspective, arguing that divine will is central to our understanding of morality.

Synonyms

voluntaristic
vsvoluntarist
  • Formal
9.1

The belief that people's choice makes things happen

emphasizes human and divine will in action knowledge and morality

Surface Forms

voluntarist positive

Morphology

voluntarist = voluntary (semi-transparent) = voluntar + ist

The suffix '-ist' indicates a person who practices or is concerned with something, but the philosophical context may not be immediately obvious.

Etymology

Voluntarist comes from the Latin word voluntas, meaning 'will' or 'choice', and the same root appears in volunteer and voluntary. So a voluntarist view puts 'will' first as the main force in action, thought, or moral choice.