“Ambition” means the systematic pursuit of achievement and of constant
improvement in respect to one’s goal. Like the word “selfishness,” and for the
same reasons, the word “ambition” has been perverted to mean only the pursuit
of dubious or evil goals, such as the pursuit of power; this left no concept to
designate the pursuit of actual values. But “ambition” as such is a neutral
concept: the evaluation of a given ambition as moral or immoral depends on the
nature of the goal. A great scientist or a great artist is the most
passionately ambitious of men. A demagogue seeking political power is
ambitious. So is a social climber seeking “prestige.” So is a modest laborer
who works conscientiously to acquire a home of his own. The common denominator
is the drive to improve the conditions of one’s existence, however broadly or
narrowly conceived. (“Improvement” is a moral term and depends on one’s
standard of values. An ambition guided by an irrational standard does not, in
fact, lead to improvement, but to self-destruction.)