Is ambition a virtue?

[Kaak]

Speer...that is a woefully inaccurate assessment of the principle of utility

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Can you name the inventors of these?

Ben Franklin, Karl Benz, and John Crapper

[Al B. Sure!]

kaak:

Bentham's Hedonic calculus only applies to the parties involved. if that is a woefully inaccurate assessment of the principle of utility, you should take it up with Dr. Bentham's mummy.

[Kaak]

utility by definition can't be applied to one person, or even a small group of people.

[Al B. Sure!]

St. Leo:

Karl Benz

Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach could also lay a legit claim on inventing the internal combustion engine automobile.

[MRT144]

what if your ambition isnt for money and posessions?

[Al B. Sure!]

Kaak:

if we're talking about Mill, this could be different but Bentham made it clear only those parties involved were of consequence. A man named Fazid in Pakistan is not effected by any decision I make so his happiness is not of concern in any hedonic calculus table.

[Al B. Sure!]

MRT:

what if your ambition isnt for money and posessions?

why does this change anything? besides material wealth (which itself varies... ancient mediterrenean societies often measured wealth in cattle, for example), power (which can be as clear as military power to as abstract as popularity), honor, and offspring are the most common highest values in societies.


but once again, what is this whole ambition is a trait some people have thing? I dont get this. It is tantamount to declaring that communism will work.

[MRT144]

albert, what if your ambition in life is to paint pretty pictures?

[Al B. Sure!]

like i said... there are a 6 billion high values in the world right now. Material wealth, power, honour, and offspring have just been the most common.

each individual possesses an intrinsic will to power (read ambition). He will strive to achieve whatever he wishes to achieve. EVERY organism on the planet has this ambition or else it simply does not live.

this is really bothering me how i cant get my mind around what the hell yall are talking about. How can some people not have ambition? Yes, in colloquial speech, you say a lazy person has no ambition or even someone who values something stupid has no ambition, yet this is a philosophical debate concerning absolute values (virtue) so this colloquialism is irrelevent. ambition is instrinsic to all life.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Kaak
Too tired to be arsed to read the all the posts, but no, ambition isn't a virtue for a couple of reasons.

1. virtues are wholly good in and of themselves, ambition is not.

2. virtues work in accordance with making you a better person or performing virtuous acts. Having a better job or a bigger house neither makes you a virtuous person, or could be considered as virtuous acts.


ambition just doesn't lend itself to virtue.

Well said.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
and what organism on the planet does not have ambition?

Only humans have ambition.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
any life which lacks ambition (in a loose definition as a plant's ambition is different from a man's) is not living.

Ambition is not the only driving force there is.

Curiosity, anger, and a number of other emotions and mental states can drive a person.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
single-celled organisms eat and excrete wastes. why would they do such things if they didnt possess the instinctual intention to survive?

Ambition is not a survival instinct. Ambition is a driving urge to achieve a goal or objective (no, staying alive is not one).

[Al B. Sure!]

yes staying alive is one... what is survival but a goal, the first and most immediate goal?

Curiosity, anger, and a number of other emotions and mental states can drive a person.

Curiosity... ambition to obtain knowledge. Anger... an ambition to rectify a percieved wrong or to impose your own will...