Is ambition a virtue?

[Ted Striker]

Ambition is not a virtue

It can be used for both good and bad



Hitler was one of the most ambitious people ever to walk the face of the earth. But his ambition resulted mostly in evil and destructive acts.


Ted wins Gold Medal for the first Hitler reference.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Ambition = going after the goals you have set yourself. This is generally good. The goals you set for yourself are where potential problems lay, though.

If you measure your success by money alone, then you will most likely end up rich. Unhappy, but rich.

Meh I could be unhappy and poor if I wanted to be

[Bereta_Eder]

Ambition twistes the face and makes people look like conditioned frankesteins with the neurotic smiles of a paranoid clown. In this aspect it is an aesthetic liability.

[Aramis]

Ambition is intellectual boredom. Read Shakespear's Henry IV, Part Two and Henry V . Prince Hal suffers from a severe case of intellectual boredom in IV/2. He has little to do and little to account for. So engages in pranks and highway robberies: he's playing games to pass the time. He's king in HV and channels that gameplaying into ambition. It's the gameplaying of his current role as king.
I don't think ambition could exist w/out boredom. I know the basic human desire for food, shelter and clothing also drive ambition, but those who have strived the highest did not lack those things. I don't support CEOs who rape stockholders, I don't support middle managers who trod all over their underlings, I don't support politicians who gladhand with a smile and then thrust a knife in the back. They disgust me.
But I can turn off that moralising and see them for what they are: the intellectually bored. The Prince Hals.
I'm not knocking intellectual boredom or ambition. Not everyone has bad traits. Great things come from them.
But in the end, ambition (beyond disadvantage) is intellectual boredom.

[Al B. Sure!]

i dont understand yall people. How the hell could ambition be anything but a positive? It is the driving force in humanity that has allowed us to raise ourselves up from mere animals. Anyone who is not ambitious is less of a human.

[Ted Striker]

Nazis had an ambition to kill all the Jews.

How is that positive?

[Drake Tungsten]

Less Jews?

[JohnT]

Yes.

[Ted Striker]

omg

[Drake Tungsten]

Even I feel a bit guilty after that one, and that's saying something...

[Al B. Sure!]

Ted:

the morality of the action is irrelevant to the morality of the motivational emotion.

**** Kant

[Aramis]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
i dont understand yall people. How the hell could ambition be anything but a positive? It is the driving force in humanity that has allowed us to raise ourselves up from mere animals. Anyone who is not ambitious is less of a human.

It is positive, in general. That it has been abused, history leaves no doubt. But what is the driving force behind ambition,when necessity is not the issue ?
Boredom. The desire to be doing something. Specifically the desire to be doing something that is advantageous to the individual. Many times, this can be advantageous to everyone,or to a specific group, like a family. so it is good. Sometimes only one or a few a__holes benefit at a great cost to the many. That is not good.
Ambition is good.
Boredom fuels ambition.
Result: usually good; sometimes not.

[Kuciwalker]

A virtue? Is intelligence a virtue? Intelligence can be used to do evil, but that does not make intelligence any less virtuous. Ambition is simply a form of energy that can be directed to good use. In that, it is as virtuous as any skill.

[Al B. Sure!]

boredom doesnt fuel ambition... ambition is the natural extension of individual awareness... there is a struggle of survival and my awareness of my existence and my placing of importance on my existance causes me to be ambitious.

where do you get this boredom thing from?

[Kuciwalker]

Boredom is discontent with one's present condition, but not through pain, merely lack of stimulation. In that, it fuels ambition, as does any form of discontent.