The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: “moral ambitiousness.”
It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest
value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never
accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never
failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an
unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving
it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s
character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above
the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection
of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that
preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.