What’s a Little Ambition?
Can Thomas Aquinas help us sort through a vexing question?
Let’s face it: MIT is an ambitious place. Its mission is “to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century,” and its students, faculty, and staff can claim to do exactly that, with a straight face. Just getting into MIT is an accomplishment: on March 14 (Pi Day), admission to the class of 2027 was offered to less than 5% of nearly 27,000 applicants.
What should we make of ambition? Christians can often struggle with this question. Pride and ambition are usually thought of as negative things, even sinful. “Pride goes before a fall,” we read in the Proverbs, and since well before Milton it has been argued that pride was the sin behind the original sin, and perhaps behind all sin. And yet - isn’t some pride a good thing? Isn’t some ambition appropriate to creatures made in God’s image? If humility is the opposite of pride, can’t we take it too far - refusing to pursue great accomplishments that really would make the world a better place, or veering too far in the direction of self-deprecation?
It turns out that over seven hundred years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas took up this very issue. His treatment of humility and pride offers helpful insights that can help us work through these very complex questions.
Early in Thomas’ discussion of humility (In the Summa Theologiae, or “ST,” II.II.161), Thomas touches on the seeming tension between humility and ambition. He begins by asking whether humility is a virtue. Along the way he notes that “humility is apparently opposed to the virtue of magnanimity, which aims at great things, whereas humility shuns them.” But virtues are not opposed to one another - so humility must not be a virtue, if magnanimity is. The response to this objection will show how this isn’t quite right: “Humility restrains the appetite from aiming at great things against right reason: while magnanimity urges the mind to great things in accord with right reason. Hence it is clear that magnanimity is not opposed to humility: indeed they concur in this, that each is according to right reason.” This is not all that Thomas has to say about the relationship between humility and magnanimity - but before continuing, we need to take a quick detour, to understand something that Thomas calls a “difficult good.”
Some goods, Thomas explains in ST I.II.23, are simple. They are just pleasurable, and we react to them with joy or love. A good meal, perhaps, or a sunny day at the beach. Similarly, some evils are simple, drawing hatred or sorrow. But then there are some goods that aren’t so simple, because they are difficult to attain: these are what Thomas terms difficult goods. We regard difficult goods - which aren’t right in front of us but take some effort to attain - with daring, fear, and hope (there are also difficult evils, which are difficult to avoid).
Consider an example: writing a book. There is much that is good in writing a book: becoming an expert on a topic, organizing one’s thoughts, sharing them with the world. Even the resulting fame and status, if not pursued excessively, can be good. But writing a book is also very difficult. This difficulty means two things. First, it puts the good of writing a book at some distance from the one who would write it. And second, the difficulty itself is unpleasant rather than pleasant. Both of these things mean that writing a book is not a simple pleasure; it is a difficult good. When we think about writing a book, we don’t simply experience joy, because the accomplishment isn’t yet in our possession - instead, Thomas says, what we experience is hope.
This brings humility back into the picture. Hope, you see, can push us too far, to pursue to much of a good thing; it needs to be kept in check. For Thomas, that’s exactly what humility does: it is the virtue that moderates hope, keeping us from pursuing difficult goods too much. But Thomas also says that when we think about a difficult good, hope isn’t the only thing we feel. Alongside our hope for the good part of the difficult good, there is also despair over the difficulty. In other words, when we consider a difficult good, our passions push us in two directions at the same time: hope pull us toward it, while despair would push us away.
So now, as we return to Thomas’ treatment of humility in ST II.II.161.1, we are ready to see why humility and magnanimity are not only not opposed, but must actually work in tandem: humility restraining the movement of hope that impels us towards the difficult good, and magnanimity urging us forward, overcoming the movement of despair that withdraws from the difficult good.
As we noted above, Thomas first asks whether humility is a virtue. Referring to the discussion in I.II.23.2 that we have just examined, he explains that humility applies in the case of the difficult good, which both draws and repels the passions: the goodness of writing a book draws us to write it, inciting the passion of hope while the difficulty involved causes us to withdraw, moved by despair. For those appetitive movements that move one toward an object, there is a need for a restraining or moderating virtue, whereas for those movements that repel, there is a need for a virtue to urge one on. In the case of the movement of the mind toward some difficult excellence, humility tempers and restrains the mind, lest it tend to high things immoderately; at the same time, magnanimity urges the mind on to the pursuit of great things according to right reason, strengthening it against despair. Thus it appears that with regard to the movement of the mind toward an difficult good, there is need for a twofold virtue - humility and magnanimity working in tandem.
What are the takeaways from all this - how has Thomas helped us? In two ways, I think.
First, in answer the question of whether a little pride, a little ambition, is a good thing, Thomas would say no, those are both unambiguously vices - but, he would say, the instinct that we have that it’s right to pursue some excellent things is on target. He just supplies a different word for the virtue that urges us in that direction: magnanimity.
That might seem like mere semantics, but there’s something deeper that Thomas has given us - a richer, more precise capacity to diagnose our own vices, preach to our own souls, and help others. Pride and ambition are both vices, you see - but they aren’t the same thing. For Thomas, pride is a lack of humility - insufficient restraint in pursuing the hope that urges us toward the difficult good. Ambition, on the other hand, is an excess of magnanimity - too much drive toward the difficult good. What’s the difference?
In the life of Christian discipleship - whether it’s our own or someone we’re trying to help or pray for - accurate diagnosis of vice is crucial. Consider again someone writing books, and now suppose that we have someone who is so overly invested in writing book after book that he is neglecting all his other duties, relationships, his family, etc. What’s going on here? He might be proud, or he might be ambitious: for Thomas these are completely different things. Pride is a lack of restraint in pursuing the good; ambition is an excess of drive. The proud person sees the good attached to writing a book - the knowledge, the fame, the status - and can’t restrain himself from pursuing them. The ambitious person, on the other hand, may not be overly drawn to knowledge and fame, but is excessively inured to the costs of writing the book. He understands how much time it will take and what it will cost him and his family, but he doesn’t withdraw from these costs in a manner that accords with right reason. These are two very different spiritual deformities, calling for two very different responses, by means of scripture, prayer, and spiritual disciplines.
The precision with which Thomas explains humility - and the other virtues - pays off for those who, like the preachers of his order whom he sought to prepare for ministry, need to employ similar precision in the care of souls, and for the everyday Christian, preaching to her own.
