We’re told from a young age to achieve. Get good grades. Get into a good school. Get a good job. Be ambitious about earning a high salary or a high-status position.

Some of us love this endless climb. But lots of us, at least once in our lives, find ourselves asking, "What’s the point of all this ambition?"Historian and author Rutger Bregman doesn’t think there is a point to that kind of ambition. Instead, he wants us to be morally ambitious, to measure the value of our achievements based on how much good we do, by how much we improve the world.

In this episode, Bregman speaks with guest host Sigal Samuel about how to know if you’re morally ambitious, the value of surrounding yourself with like-minded people, and how to make moral ambition fashionable.

Host: Sigal Samuel, Vox senior reporter

Guest: Rutger Bregman, historian, author of Moral Ambition, and co-founder of The School for Moral Ambition

Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members

Show Notes

Vox’s Good Robot series can be found here:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3 (discusses the "drowning child thought experiment" and effective altruism)

Episode 4

Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices