"Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue"
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Ambition gets a bad rap in the moral universe Ballou inhabited: a bustling early-American culture where striving could look suspiciously like vanity, greed, or a quiet vote of no confidence in Providence. Ballou, a Universalist clergyman, doesn’t deny that suspicion. He grants the orthodox premise that ambition, “in itself,” is a vice - a hunger centered on the self. Then he pulls a doctrinal judo move: the same impulse can be “the parent of virtue.”
The line works because it refuses a clean split between sinful desire and righteous behavior. Ballou is diagnosing a psychological truth that church moralizing often missed: people rarely become good through pure motives. They become good through mixed motives that are socially legible. The young professional volunteers, donates, studies, disciplines himself - partly because he wants to be admired, to matter, to rise. Ballou’s point isn’t that ego is secretly holy; it’s that ego can be harnessed. The vice doesn’t evaporate, it gets domesticated into habits that look a lot like virtue.
There’s also a democratic subtext. In a society loosening old hierarchies, ambition becomes a kind of civic engine. If you can’t rely on inherited status, you cultivate reputation. That cultivation can produce real public goods: philanthropy, reform, self-restraint, competence. Ballou’s phrasing is careful: ambition “often” parents virtue, not always. He’s offering a pastoral compromise - a moral system that can speak to strivers without pretending they’ve transcended wanting.
The line works because it refuses a clean split between sinful desire and righteous behavior. Ballou is diagnosing a psychological truth that church moralizing often missed: people rarely become good through pure motives. They become good through mixed motives that are socially legible. The young professional volunteers, donates, studies, disciplines himself - partly because he wants to be admired, to matter, to rise. Ballou’s point isn’t that ego is secretly holy; it’s that ego can be harnessed. The vice doesn’t evaporate, it gets domesticated into habits that look a lot like virtue.
There’s also a democratic subtext. In a society loosening old hierarchies, ambition becomes a kind of civic engine. If you can’t rely on inherited status, you cultivate reputation. That cultivation can produce real public goods: philanthropy, reform, self-restraint, competence. Ballou’s phrasing is careful: ambition “often” parents virtue, not always. He’s offering a pastoral compromise - a moral system that can speak to strivers without pretending they’ve transcended wanting.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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