determinist
Free will denier
A determinist believes that all events, including human choices and actions, are the inevitable result of prior causes—that free will is an illusion.
The term works as both noun and adjective: a determinist philosopher, determinist thinking.
Determinism appears in philosophy, physics, and debates about moral responsibility: If we're just molecules following physical laws, the determinist argues, how can anyone be blamed for anything?
Doctrine of inevitable outcomes
- materialismPrioritizing goods over spirit
- reductionismExplaining wholes through parts
- naturalismWorldview excluding the supernatural
- mechanismMeans by which something operates
Laplace · Leibniz · free will · libertarianism · agency · volition · deliberation · moral responsibility
Production of effects
- causeWhat produces an effect
- effectResult of a cause
- chainLinked segments forming length
- sequenceOrdered succession of elements
antecedent · consequence · mechanism · laws · physics · necessity · sufficient condition · necessary condition
Impossible to prevent
- inescapableImpossible to avoid
- ineluctableImpossible to evade
- inexorableImpossible to prevent
- certainFree from doubt
unpreventable · irrevocable · necessary · fixed · sealed · foregone conclusion · preordained · predestined
Predetermined course of events
- providenceDivine protective care
- kismetPreordained future outcome
- predestinationDivinely predetermined fate
- foreordinationPredetermined divine decree
doom · prophecy · oracle · divination · astrology · fates · karma · ordained
Relating to heredity
- biologicalRelating to living organisms
- environmentalOf natural surroundings
- neurologicalOf the nervous system
- psychologicalOf the mind
behavioral · economic · social · technological · historical · cultural · mechanistic · reductionist
fatalism
Doctrine of inevitable outcomes
- materialismPrioritizing goods over spirit
- reductionismExplaining wholes through parts
- naturalismWorldview excluding the supernatural
mechanism · Laplace · Leibniz · free will · libertarianism · agency · volition · deliberation · moral responsibility · Hume
causation
Production of effects
sequence · antecedent · consequence · mechanism · laws · physics · necessity · sufficient condition · necessary condition · billiard ball
unavoidable
Impossible to prevent
- inescapableImpossible to avoid
- ineluctableImpossible to evade
- inexorableImpossible to prevent
certain · unpreventable · irrevocable · necessary · fixed · sealed · foregone conclusion · preordained · predestined · fated
destiny
Predetermined course of events
- providenceDivine protective care
- kismetPreordained future outcome
- predestinationDivinely predetermined fate
foreordination · doom · prophecy · oracle · divination · astrology · fates · karma · ordained · decreed
genetic
Relating to heredity
- biologicalRelating to living organisms
- environmentalOf natural surroundings
- neurologicalOf the nervous system
psychological · behavioral · economic · social · technological · historical · cultural · mechanistic · reductionist · heredity
- thinkersthinkers, thinker, philosophers, philosopher, Aristotle
- freethinkersfreethinker, freethinkers, secularists, rationalist, rationalists
deterministlibertarian
Anti-statist political adherent
indeterminist · voluntarist · existentialist · Kantian · fatalist
- determining factorWhat settles an outcome
- genetic determinismHeredity alone shapes traits
- hard determinismAll events causally predetermined
- deterministic chaosUnpredictability from precise rules
determining, determinism, deterministic, determinists, deterministically