Ambition (character trait)
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Ambition is a character trait that describes people who are driven to better their station or to succeed at lofty goals.
Origin and nature
[edit]Ambition has been interpreted as the resolute culmination of a bold personal decision, but also as a receptive acceptance of an externally-provided great destiny.[1] It can be characterized as a drive or a goad that makes the person with ambition uncomfortable until they have realized their goals.[2] This discomfort can in part arise from the fact that the extraordinary goals that characterize ambition tend to come to public notice.[3] David Hume called it "the most incurable and inflexible of human passions".[4]
Various philosophers have taken different views of ambition. Aristotle described it as virtue born of the love of achieving noble purposes, though he was ambivalent about its potential ends.[5] Philosopher Agnes Callard contrasts ambition with aspiration: in her view, ambition concerns goals with already-ascertained value: money, power, fame, and the like. Aspiration concerns goals that one does not yet fully understand the value of, but that one hopes to understand in the process of reaching for them.[6][page needed]
References
[edit]- ^ Marden, Orison Swett (1919). Ambition and Success.
- ^ Addison, Joseph (10 November 1711). "Ambition: Its Use and Abuse". Spectator.
- ^ de Montaigne, Michel (1580). "Of Three Commerces". Essays.
Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes by keeping them always in show, like the statue of a public place.
- ^ Hume, David (1754–1761). The History of England.
- ^ Nieuwenburg, Paul (2010). "Aristotle on Ambition". History of Political Thought. 31 (4): 535–555. JSTOR 26224128.
- ^ Callard, Agnes (2018). Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming.