Spinoza and the Noble Use of Ambition

How ambition can degrade the mind, but also be redirected toward excellence.

I.

Ambition is usually classified as a vice or a virtue depending on its object. Ambition for wealth is greed. Ambition for power is lust for domination. Ambition for excellence is admirable. Spinoza's analysis is more precise. Ambition is the desire to do something that will cause others to love or admire us. It is, by its nature, a passion that depends on the imagination of others. The ambitious person is not self-sufficient. He needs an audience.

This dependence makes ambition dangerous. The person whose joy depends on the opinions of others is a person whose emotional state is controlled by external causes. He can be manipulated by praise and devastated by criticism. His power is not his own. It is on loan from the crowd.

II.

But ambition, while defined by Spinoza as an immoderate desire for esteem, can be redirected toward productive ends. The desire to be admired can be channeled toward objects that genuinely increase power. The ambitious person who seeks to become an excellent surgeon, a clear writer, a fair judge, is directing his ambition toward goods that benefit others as well as himself. The admiration he receives is a byproduct of genuine achievement, not a substitute for it.

The difference between noble and base ambition is the difference between seeking admiration for what you are and seeking admiration regardless of what you are. The first produces excellence. The second produces posturing. The first increases power. The second increases dependence.

III.

The redirection of ambition from base to noble objects requires understanding. The person who craves admiration must ask: what am I doing to earn it? If the answer is nothing (or worse, if the answer is deception, manipulation, or the mere display of status), the admiration is groundless, and the joy that accompanies it is fragile. The moment the audience sees through the display, the admiration vanishes, and the ambitious person is left with nothing.

The person who earns admiration through genuine achievement has a more durable joy, because the achievement is real and the admiration is based on reality. The audience may still turn, but the achievement remains. The ambitious surgeon who is admired for his skill still has his skill, even if the admiration stops. The ambitious poser who is admired for his image has nothing when the image cracks.

IV.

Spinoza's analysis of ambition also explains why the pursuit of fame is self-defeating. Fame is the admiration of strangers. The famous person is known by many and understood by none. His joy depends on the opinions of people he has never met, whose judgments are shallow and fickle. This is not power. It is the most extreme form of dependence.

The wise person does not seek fame. He seeks the esteem of those whose judgment he respects: friends, colleagues, fellow seekers of understanding. Their admiration is based on genuine knowledge of his character and achievements. It is not likely to vanish with the next news cycle. The noble ambition is the ambition to be worthy of the esteem of the wise.

V.

The highest ambition, for Spinoza, is the ambition to understand. The person who desires to grasp the causes of things, to increase his store of adequate ideas, to participate in the intellectual love of God, is pursuing an object that does not depend on any audience. The understanding itself is the reward. The admiration of others, if it comes, is incidental.

This is the noble use of ambition: not the suppression of the desire to be admired, but its redirection toward objects that are admirable independently of the admiration they produce. The ambitious person who becomes worthy of admiration has achieved something real. The ambitious person who merely collects admiration has achieved nothing. The difference is the difference between power and its appearance.