Definition of meliorism in English:
meliorism
noun ˈmiːlɪərɪz(ə)mˈmēlyəˌrizəm
mass nounPhilosophy The belief that the world can be made better by human effort.
Example sentencesExamples
- Liberal and egalitarian in sympathy, they eschewed class analysis for civic meliorism, in keeping with his own social democratic values.
- The dominant philosophy of statecraft has become a form of pragmatic meliorism with markets and Western democratic institutions as the chosen means for improving our lives.
- Orwell's theoretically skeptical prophetic meliorism resonates with much in Christianity, and especially Catholicism.
- The prevailing pessimism of the cycle is relieved by passages of lyrical beauty and by faith in scientific and social meliorism.
Derivatives
noun & adjective
Philosophy One needn't be a global meliorist to contest her charge.
Example sentencesExamples
- However, there is another option, often adopted in the liberal mainstream, which is based on a meliorist view of progress, and in principle always leans in the pacific direction.
- Walter Lipmann, a columnist who wrote in the middle years of the last century, called himself a meliorist.
- What Orwell offers by way of contrast to all this is a meliorist localism in politics and economics.
- Rejecting the quest for absolute certainty, it takes a meliorist attitude that human action sometimes can improve the world.
adjective
Philosophy Without any conscious program at all the beginning of plant domestication started a melioristic process.
Example sentencesExamples
- His melioristic fervor endeared him to moralists of genteel persuasion.
- And while she plainly admires the effort of idealistic men and women trying to help others, she also knows that, in the end, imperial conquest is anything but melioristic in its course.
- If we can, at least for the moment, accept the premise that melioristic beliefs are legitimate, we can explore some potential ways to use our newfound faith in human abilities.
- There, James claims sympathies with each of the opposed temperaments, opting for a decidedly melioristic middle position.
Origin
Late 19th century: from Latin melior 'better' + -ism.