Conativism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The belief that the basis of all action lies in desire. uncountable

    "And — the crucial point for present purposes — they enable Hume to drive home the conclusion that moral cognitivism's first, or psychological, claim must be rejected, and moral conativism endorsed, if one is to understand the tie between morality and action."

Example

More examples

"And — the crucial point for present purposes — they enable Hume to drive home the conclusion that moral cognitivism's first, or psychological, claim must be rejected, and moral conativism endorsed, if one is to understand the tie between morality and action."

Etymology

From conative + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.