Moral Ambition

↻ 2025-07-01

Mixed feelings on this one. It was worth reading, and has a good message. We need to find some way, indeed, to promote solutions to the problems of mankind which aren’t purely capitalist.

Unfortunately, I’ve read the book and I’m no more enlightened as to how that might happen. The book contains a litany of case studies in people and organizations which do good, and not a ton of practical advice on how to be those people or form those organizations.

Perhaps most practical is the narrative around lifestyle. I think some folks do overestimate the costs of dignified living (or overestimate the boundaries of dignity), and I think this can get in the way of feeling like one “has enough” to break free from the grind and pursue good for humankind.

I wish there were more focus on exactly this kind of lifestyle as an exploration of a post work society. We’re going to need to find some way to structure our economies which doesn’t require menial labor in exchange for dignity, and I think it’s a shame that this transition can’t be a positive outcome (that is, if we refuse to adapt politically and economically).

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