You’re told to be ambitious. Chase success. Define it for yourself. Make it happen.
That’s wrong.
Not because ambition itself is bad, but because most of what we call “ambition” is actually something else entirely—something the classical philosophers identified as a vice, not a virtue. Understanding the difference matters if you want to achieve great things without becoming a miserable, hollow version of yourself.
What you need isn’t better ambition. It’s magnanimity.
This isn’t semantic hair-splitting. The distinction between magnanimity and what society celebrates as “healthy ambition” is the difference between pursuing genuinely worthy things in a worthy manner and chasing honor, status, and recognition while telling yourself it’s about the work.
One is a virtue. The other is vainglory. And vainglory—no matter how our culture celebrates it—will make you either successful and hollow, or capable and inadequate. Either way, miserable.
What Magnanimity Actually Means (And Why Most Definitions Get It Wrong)
Magnanimity comes from the Latin magnus (great) and animus (soul)—literally, “greatness of soul.” But that translation, while accurate, doesn’t capture what the concept actually means.
Most modern definitions treat magnanimity as a synonym for generosity or nobility of character. “Being magnanimous” gets reduced to forgiving people who wronged you or being gracious in victory. That’s not wrong exactly, but it misses the point entirely.
The classical philosophers—particularly Aristotle and later Thomas Aquinas—understood magnanimity as something far more specific and far more demanding. It’s the virtue concerned with honor: specifically, with pursuing genuinely great things and accepting the honor that’s fitting for accomplishing them.
Not pursuing honor for its own sake. Not refusing all recognition out of false humility. Pursuing worthy things worthily, and accepting—without either grasping or deflecting—the honor that actually fits what you’ve done.
The great-souled person, in the classical framework, is someone who knows what’s genuinely worthy, has the capacity to pursue it, and does so without either vainglory (disordered desire for honor) or pusillanimity (refusing worthy pursuits out of false humility or fear).
That’s magnanimity. And it’s not what LinkedIn posts mean when they tell you to “be ambitious.”
The Classical Framework: Aquinas on Magnanimity as Virtue
Thomas Aquinas, writing in the 13th century, devoted substantial attention to magnanimity in the Summa Theologica. His treatment built on Aristotle but clarified something crucial: magnanimity is a virtue—an excellence of character—not just a personality trait or leadership quality.
Here’s what that means practically.
In Thomistic virtue ethics, virtues are habits that orient us toward genuinely good ends and help us achieve them in the right way. Vices are habits that orient us toward disordered ends or pursue even good ends in disordered ways.
Magnanimity is the virtue that governs our relationship to honor and great undertakings. It’s the settled disposition to:
- Recognize what’s genuinely worthy of pursuit (not just what society rewards)
- Pursue those worthy things with appropriate ambition and effort
- Accept fitting honor for genuine accomplishment
- Refuse disproportionate honor (either too much or too little)
You don’t need to be Catholic—or even religious—to recognize that Aquinas got something right here. He’s describing a pattern anyone can observe: some people pursue genuinely important work and handle recognition appropriately. Others chase status and call it achievement. Still others refuse worthy challenges and call it humility.
The first group is magnanimous. The second is vainglorious. The third is pusillanimous.
Understanding these distinctions isn’t academic philosophy. It’s recognizing reality accurately so you can live well instead of chasing the wrong things or refusing the right ones.
What Magnanimity Is Not: Vainglory and Pusillanimity
You can’t understand what magnanimity is without understanding what it opposes. In classical virtue ethics, every virtue sits between two vices—one of excess, one of deficiency.
For magnanimity, the vice of excess is vainglory: disordered desire for honor beyond what’s fitting. The vice of deficiency is pusillanimity: refusing to pursue worthy things you’re capable of achieving.
Vainglory: The Vice Society Celebrates
Vainglory isn’t just “too much ambition.” It’s ambition directed at the wrong things or pursued for the wrong reasons.
The vainglorious person:
- Pursues honor and recognition as the primary goal
- Chooses undertakings based on what will impress others
- Measures worth by external validation
- Craves acknowledgment even for trivial accomplishments
- Feels empty when they achieve what they were chasing
Sound familiar? That’s because vainglory is what hustle culture celebrates, what LinkedIn rewards, what society calls “healthy ambition.”
The vainglorious founder doesn’t build a company to solve a genuine problem—they build it to be known as a founder. The vainglorious professional doesn’t choose work based on what’s genuinely important—they choose based on prestige and what they can put on their resume. The vainglorious parent doesn’t raise children well—they engineer achievements they can brag about.
And here’s the crucial insight: vainglory makes you miserable whether you succeed or fail by its own standards.
Win the game—make partner, raise the funding, get the promotion, build the following—and you feel hollow because the recognition you craved doesn’t satisfy. Lose the game or opt out, and you feel inadequate because you’re still measuring yourself by vainglory’s scoreboard.
Either way, you’re trapped.
Pusillanimity: The Opposite Vice
The opposite of vainglory isn’t humility. It’s pusillanimity—literally, “smallness of soul.”
The pusillanimous person refuses to pursue genuinely worthy things they’re capable of accomplishing. Not out of genuine inability, but out of fear, false humility, or a desire to avoid the responsibility that comes with doing great work.
Pusillanimity shows up as:
- “I’m not qualified” (when you are)
- “Someone else should do it” (when you’re the one who should)
- “I don’t want to seem arrogant” (refusing fitting honor)
- “I’m content with less” (when what you’re refusing is genuinely worthy)
This isn’t the same as choosing a “smaller” path out of genuine discernment. A teacher who recognizes that teaching is worthy work and pursues it excellently isn’t pusillanimous. They’re magnanimous. A teacher who chose teaching because they were afraid to attempt something they were genuinely called to—that’s pusillanimity.
The distinction matters because our culture often confuses magnanimity with vainglory and pusillanimity with humility. But magnanimity is neither vainglorious striving nor pusillanimous self-limitation. It’s something else entirely.
Magnanimity vs. What Society Calls “Ambition”
Here’s where this gets practical.
When society tells you to “be ambitious,” what they usually mean is: pursue status, recognition, wealth, and power. Chase the promotion. Build the personal brand. Optimize for prestige. Make people notice you.
That’s not magnanimity. That’s vainglory with better marketing.
Real magnanimity asks different questions:
- Not “What will impress people?” but “What’s genuinely worthy?”
- Not “What can I achieve?” but “What should I pursue?”
- Not “How do I maximize recognition?” but “What fitting honor should I accept—and refuse?”
Consider two people choosing careers.
Person A has talent for teaching but chooses investment banking because it’s prestigious, pays well, and impresses people. They’re miserable in the work but console themselves with the status. When they burn out and quit, they feel like a failure because society measures them by the vainglorious standard they initially accepted.
Person B recognizes that teaching is genuinely worthy work, that they’re capable of excellence in it, and that excellence in worthy work matters more than prestige. They choose teaching, pursue it with appropriate ambition and effort, and build a career they’re genuinely proud of—not because it impresses others, but because they’re doing genuinely important work well.
Person A is vainglorious, whether they succeed or fail by society’s standards. Person B is magnanimous.
I’m a teacher. Society says I underachieved. That I wasted potential by not pursuing something more prestigious, more lucrative, more impressive. I know that’s wrong. I chose genuinely worthy work and I’m excellent at it. I don’t apologize for that, and I don’t feel inadequate comparing myself to people who chose paths society celebrates more.
That’s not arrogance. That’s magnanimity. It’s recognizing what’s actually worthy and refusing to measure myself by vainglory’s scoreboard.
You can do the same in whatever worthy work you choose—whether that’s teaching, medicine, craftsmanship, art, ministry, parenting, entrepreneurship, or any other genuinely important pursuit. The path doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you’re pursuing something genuinely worthy in a worthy manner, or chasing recognition and calling it ambition.
What Magnanimity Looks Like in Practice
Magnanimity isn’t theoretical. It shows up in how you make decisions, handle recognition, choose work, and measure success.
In Career Decisions
The magnanimous person asks: “Is this work genuinely worthy? Am I capable of excellence in it? Does pursuing this serve something beyond my own recognition?”
Not: “Will this impress people? Does it pay well? What can I put on LinkedIn?”
This means you might choose the unconventional path—teaching over consulting, craft over corporate, ministry over management—if that’s where genuinely worthy work lies for you. Or you might choose the prestigious path, but for different reasons: not because it’s prestigious, but because it’s genuinely important work you’re called to do.
The difference isn’t the external choice. It’s the internal framework you’re using to make it.
In Handling Recognition
The magnanimous person accepts fitting honor without either grasping for more or deflecting out of false humility.
When you do genuinely excellent work, you acknowledge it. You don’t minimize it (“Oh, it was nothing”) or refuse recognition that’s actually deserved. But you also don’t inflate your accomplishments, demand recognition for trivial things, or measure your worth by how much others praise you.
This is harder than it sounds because our culture swings between vainglorious self-promotion and pusillanimous self-deprecation. Magnanimity is neither. It’s accepting reality: you did good work, it deserves recognition, but your worth doesn’t depend on whether people notice.
In Daily Work
The magnanimous person does excellent work because the work is worth doing excellently, not because excellent work gets recognized.
This distinction becomes clear when no one’s watching. Vainglorious work quality drops when there’s no audience. Magnanimous work quality remains consistent because the standard is internal—this work is worthy of excellence regardless of who notices.
In Both Paths to the Same Problem
Whether you succeeded by society’s standards and feel hollow, or chose an unconventional path and feel inadequate—magnanimity offers the same answer: you’re measuring yourself by the wrong scoreboard.
If you’re the successful founder, executive, or high-achiever who feels empty despite “making it,” magnanimity asks: Were you pursuing something genuinely worthy, or were you chasing status and recognition? The hollowness you feel is the answer.
If you’re the capable person in an unconventional path—teaching, ministry, art, caregiving, craft—who feels like you underachieved, magnanimity asks: Is the work you’re doing genuinely worthy? Are you pursuing it excellently? Then why are you measuring yourself by society’s vainglorious standards instead of reality?
The problem isn’t which path you chose. It’s that you’re still playing vainglory’s game.
Why This Matters: Transformation, Not Optimization
Here’s what this isn’t: advice on how to be more effectively ambitious. Tips for “balancing” ambition with humility. Strategies for achieving success without burning out.
If that’s what you want, you’re still thinking in terms of optimizing vainglory. That won’t work.
Magnanimity isn’t better ambition. It’s a different thing entirely. It’s not about playing society’s game more effectively—it’s about stopping that game completely and playing a different one.
This is conversion, not optimization.
Stop measuring yourself by society’s scoreboard—whether you’re winning or losing by it doesn’t matter. The scoreboard itself is wrong.
Start pursuing genuinely worthy things in a manner worthy of them. Teaching. Medicine. Craft. Art. Parenting. Building things that matter. Creating genuine value. Doing work that’s actually important.
Accept fitting honor for genuine accomplishment, but don’t make honor the goal. Pursue the work because it’s worthy, not because it will get you recognized.
You won’t feel immediately validated by this shift. Society will still measure you by its standards, and you’ll still notice. The founder who chose profit over impact will still make more money. The professional who chose prestige over purpose will still have the impressive title. The person who optimized for recognition will still get more attention.
That’s fine. They’re playing a different game. Let them win it.
You’re pursuing something that’s actually worthy. That’s harder and better. That’s magnanimity.
And whether or not anyone notices, whether or not it impresses people, whether or not it leads to the kind of success society celebrates—you’ll know you’re doing genuinely important work in a manner worthy of it.
That’s not settling. That’s greatness of soul.
Conclusion
Magnanimity isn’t a personality trait you either have or don’t have. It’s not a leadership quality reserved for the exceptional. It’s a virtue—a habit you cultivate through consistent practice and moral clarity.
The choice in front of you isn’t whether to be more ambitious or less ambitious. It’s not about optimizing your career strategy or finding better work-life balance. Those questions assume you’re playing the right game and just need to play it better.
You’re not. Society’s scoreboard—the one that measures worth by status, recognition, titles, wealth, and what impresses other people—is fundamentally broken. Vainglory dominates our culture so completely that we’ve forgotten there’s an alternative.
Magnanimity is that alternative. It’s the virtue that allows you to pursue genuinely great things without becoming a terrible person in the process. To do excellent work without making recognition the goal. To accept fitting honor without grasping for more. To live with moral seriousness without apology.
This isn’t easier than chasing conventional success. It’s harder. You’ll still notice when others get more recognition for lesser work. You’ll still feel the cultural pressure to measure yourself by society’s standards. You’ll still be tempted to justify your choices by pointing to external validation.
But you’ll know—and this is what matters—that you’re pursuing something genuinely worthy in a manner worthy of it. Not because it impresses people. Not because it leads to status or recognition. Because the work itself matters and you’re capable of doing it excellently.
That’s magnanimity.
Start pursuing what’s actually worthy. The rest will follow—or it won’t. Either way, you’ll have chosen well.
