Is ambition a virtue? The trait is responsible for the formation of countless empires – it drives us to be better people, to survive and to thrive. We admire go-getters, startup founders, people with gusto, and ambition is richly rewarded. We need ambitious people, certainly, and many of us would benefit from more of it ourselves. Yet it also makes us unsatisfied with what we have, constantly hungry for more. Ambition is an appetite. Appetites without control readily lend themselves to excess and misery – much like with food, we can make ourselves gluttons, we can take until we are sick, and then ask for more.
Aristotle defined the concept of the ‘Golden Mean’ to be the position between two extremes where a virtue could reside. It was not, as some misunderstand, a mathematical mean that always sits square in the center, but instead an acceptance of the fact that for any good thing, there is often an extreme of deficiency and an extreme of excess. If one considers courage a virtue, its excess would be recklessness and its deficiency would be cowardice. One is action not tempered by reason – it’s certainly capable of bravery and great deeds, but also capable of rank stupidity and egregious error. The other is paralyzed by inaction, incapable of doing what’s right, even when one ought to.
Ambition, then, ought to be considered on this spectrum. The ambition of Alexander the Great may be impressive, even admirable – his achievements were vast and magnificent, he dismantled one of the world’s greatest empires and conquered great swathes of territory, and his name has been spoken with reverence by conquerors and rulers ever since. Yet in his short life his appetite for more pushed him to failure – we must remember that Alexander did not stop in his conquest eastwards until his army was on the verge of revolt, and after his premature death at the age of 32, his empire fractured into bloody and enduring warfare between his successors. According to the ancient Greek historian Diodorus, his answer to who should inherit his kingdom was emblematic of his life – “To the strongest.” Is there any more overt call to ambition? One can attest to Alexander’s success as a conqueror, and one can say he left an immense legacy – you could even argue that without his unchecked ambition, it never would have been possible. And yet, we must wonder if he had restrained himself but a little, if he had consolidated his gains, controlled his appetite, if he might have truly conquered the world. Or even if he hadn’t, perhaps he’d have built a worthy and enduring empire, rather than a fractured and squabbling collection of successor-kingdoms. The Roman poet Juvenal quipped, “The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was.”
Plato defined the tyrannical man as a man who was ruled by appetite. We readily identify tyrants by unchecked ambition – those with both the desire and ability to break the rules to get what they want, to behave unjustly, to lie, cheat and steal. The unfortunate truth is that these underhanded means are often effective, but their corrupting influence do not benefit those who wield them. Tyrants in power are not happy men – they are paranoid, ever conscious of those they have wronged exacting vengeance. They are bloated, seizing what they want when they want it, but always hungry. To give up power is no longer an option, as the vulnerability it creates leaves them liable to be punished for their wrongdoings, and even if they weren’t, reducing their pleasures is untenable. They have ruined their own lives, even as they accumulated wealth and power.
Dopamine – a chemical responsible for desire in the human brain – is one of the most widely studied neurotransmitters for good reason. We need it to live – dopamine plays a pivotal role in our ability to move, to progress towards our goals, and to take pleasure in that pursuit. Without it we would languish until we starved. Yet the more we feed this system, the more numb it can become to previously pleasurable stimuli – anybody who has heard of the ‘Hedonic treadmill’ knows this story. Dopamine is a chemical of pursuit and desire, not happiness – it is the voice in our head that tells us the next thing will make us happy – whether that’s a new pair of boots, a bigger house, a new partner, or a global empire. It wants more, not always better. It is what drives our addictions and our cravings, even as the pleasure fades and we are driven instead by the lash of pain and anxiety that accompanies its absence.
If we want to consider ambition a virtue, we must at the very least temper its meaning to account for the rank excess of it, which can destroy the lives not just of the tyrant who nurses it but entire generations of people. On the one end of ambition is lust and insatiable desire, and its deficiency is apathy and idleness. In between, then, the virtuous mean, would that not be determination, initiative, and control? Not control of others, but control of oneself. The ability to say enough is enough. The ability to care about what is right, to motivate oneself to act for their betterment and the betterment of friends, family, and comrades, and not to gorge themselves on more for the sake of more. The ability to turn one’s ambition inwards, and cultivate the most important form of power – power over your own actions, desires, and emotions. In the immortal words of Pubilius Syrus, “Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.”
Works Referenced:
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Edited by Joe Sachs. Newbury, Mass: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co., 2002. – Amazon Link
Plato, and Allan David Bloom. The Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. S.l.: Basic Books, 1991. – Amazon Link