necessarian
The philosopher presented a necessarian argument against the existence of moral responsibility.
Definition
- Noun:
- Necessarian refers to a person who believes in philosophical necessitarianism, the doctrine that all events, including human actions, are determined by antecedent causes and are therefore inevitable. This belief rejects the notion of free will.
Usage Examples
- (A person who holds the deterministic view that free will is an illusion.)
- (A person who advocates for the necessity of all events.)
Advanced Usage
- is a technical term primarily used in philosophical contexts, especially within discussions of determinism, causality, and ethics. It is less common than its synonym "determinist" but carries a more precise historical connotation, often associated with 18th-century thinkers like Joseph Priestley.
Variants and Related Words
- Necessitarianism (n): the philosophical doctrine that all events are necessary and determined.
- Necessitarianism challenges the concept of moral accountability. (The belief system that a necessarian adheres to.)
- Necessary (adj): required or inevitable; logically unavoidable.
- A necessary condition for the necessarian's view is a deterministic universe. (Something that must exist for the doctrine to hold.)
Synonyms
- Determinist: a person who believes that all events are determined by prior causes.
- The determinist, like the necessarian, denies the existence of free will.
Related Idioms
- No directly related idioms exist for this specialized term. However, the phrase "the die is cast" (meaning events are already determined) captures a similar idea.
- For a necessarian, the die is cast long before any decision is made. (The outcome is fixed by prior causes.)