Ambition seems to us desirable and dangerous. We’re egalitarians in many respects, but we also want to achieve greatness. We want to be superior to others, but only in the right ways. We strive to be great so that our greatness will make the world a better place. But we also recognize the ways in which ambition is dangerous to our society, and perhaps to our own happiness. Can we really be great for the greater good?

In this session, we will look at how the ancient and medieval world viewed ambition. We will focus on Aristotle’s account of magnanimity and the love of small honors in the Nicomachean Ethics, and Thomas Aquinas’s adaptation of that account in the thirteenth century.

On Monday, October 27 at 6 PM, join Nathaniel Peters (Morningside) for a seminar series on how our views on ambition have changed from antiquity through the early days of the American Republic, up to our own time. We will read from the Nichomachean Ethics.