Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers Humankind and Utopia for Realists comes a bold manifesto daring us to harness our talents and transform our idealism into action. A career consists of 2,000 workweeks, and how you spend that time is one of the most important decisions of your life — yet millions of people are stuck in mind-numbing, pointless, or just plain harmful jobs.

The antidote is moral ambition: the will to be among the best, but with different measures of success. Not a fancy title, fat salary, or corner office, but a career dedicated to the best solutions to the world's biggest problems — whether that means tackling climate change, making pandemics history, or fighting Big Tobacco.

Bregman reveals how our conventional definitions of success are harming us and the planet, and shows how we can shift the focus from personal gain to societal benefit. In the process, he introduces a growing movement of pioneers — builders, problem-solvers, doers — who have chosen a path less traveled. A guidebook to finding that path, Moral Ambition reminds us that the real measure of success lies not in what we accumulate, but in what we contribute.

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Why I Picked It Up

I've been on a business books kick because, now that I've turned in my novel draft again, I'm doing a lot of career work—updating my portfolio, preparing next steps, and translating my years-long projects into resume-friendly jargon to trot out in a button down over Zoom. I do love the challenge and hunger of it all, and there's something immensely refreshing about translating all my pursuits into the tangibles. Still, it's a specific mode.

I read a lot about time management and grit and branding and visibility for work and growth. On the personal end, I also read about how we define morality and kindness. Bundle it all together, and you get a vibe like Moral Ambition, cited galore on LinkedIn and similar. Most honestly, I was probably most motivated to pick this up because of the moral dissonance I felt when reading a thread on a Reddit forum that popped up. I was made uneasy by all the comments encouraging the OP (original poster) to just lie; I'm always somehow surprised that lying is even a default option for some.

I know on a logical and intellectual level that people operate morally opposite to how I do, but it's still always jarring to read casual, similar instances in reality. I like to believe that "right" choices will win out! So I was inspired to read about people trying to build a better culture in spaces that might otherwise reward being cutthroat or going for the sure bet.

About the Book

I don't have high expectations for nonfiction books geared towards the business sector, especially when they have subtitles that feel too self-help-y. I tend to get my best lessons from books that aren't trying to teach me lessons; in a similar vein, that might look like a social history or something more reflective than pedantic. But admittedly, I did have higher hopes for this one, as I like Rutger Bregman's Humankind: A Hopeful History.

Voice & Tone

I found Moral Ambition to be rather strange, actually, because it felt pretty disjointed and subjective. I work in a subjective industry (publishing & media) but just found he had weird, strong opinions about what made a "moral" job.

This is a silly example, but he spoke dismissively of someone starting a mattress brand and how that's not a job that actually matters and—granted, I'm a terrible sleeper and write within the DTC space—but getting someone to sleep better is arguably an important mission someone might feel called to for various reasons? Maybe their target consumer is the sleep-deprived mom struggling for those rare few hours or REM postpartum in which every minute of rest matters, or they build for athletes whose endeavors on the field make people feel more connected. You know? Versus writing self-help business books...

Grit by Angela Duckworth points out that the things we tend to stick with are those we feel make a difference to others in addition to ourselves. There's an optimal mix that makes a pursuit magnetic or self-perpetuating. For example: I keep my blog running pretty effortlessly because I do believe it contributes to the greater good, but I could see Bregman scoffing at it because it doesn't fit his narrow definition of what's helpful. You can of course use examples at the extremes of both ends, like weapons manufacturing or being a nun, but that's not actually all that helpful. Most people know the trade-off when they're operating in such polarized roles.

I understood his pushback against standard roles in areas like corporate law or consulting (the pressure you get swept up in to work the "right" jobs), but my fascination with the psychology of the arts makes me defensive towards how we deploy the trivial label. So I agree with his broader points of wanting to aim towards good, and overall found plenty interesting, but his confidence in unilaterally declaring some fields useful and some not seemed really personalized in a way that undermined his argument.

He was also rather judgmental and sweeping towards whole generations and their working habits, and I just find my trust dropping when people claim extremely broad categorizations with no acknowledgement of nuance, or no further analysis of their conclusions. A few examples he used that made me skeptical then made me realize that he used almost no data throughout the book. Moral Ambition was heavily anecdotal, which made me realize a lot of his arguments were almost entirely based on "vibes."

“Most of us are concerned about more or less the same things. Your average journalist is obsessed with what other news outlets are reporting. Your average entrepreneur is preoccupied with what the competition is up to. Your average academic is fixated on what peers think.”

I just found a lot of his points to be incredibly subjective. ("Source? Just trust me, bro.") He contradicted his own arguments a lot for that reason, which seemed to signal some lack of awareness or reflection to me, so I emerged from the book unsure what he would think of certain structures, jobs, scenarios, etc. Because he didn't offer a compelling framework for how to think about moral jobs beyond his personal opinion, you'd have to run each one by him case-by-case, which I just think means his underlying points were flawed.

For example, I absolutely agree with him that we lose a lot of effectiveness when we police for purity (as has been a discussion between leftists and liberals for a while in the polarized political climate) but that again feeds the sense that he sees himself as above his own rules; the entire book feels like he's purity-policing his own readers. You're either moral in the exact same way he is, or you're lazy with no real push for change. The lack of gradient made Moral Ambition feel weak to me.

Plus, I found a few points that were blatantly incorrect, like his example of inventions like dishwashers giving women more leisure time. Studies actually show that as technology filled household gaps (vacuum cleaners, etc.), scope demands vastly increased, adding more duties and expectations into their routines.

That also shapes the narrative of the book; he picked individual analysis over structural analysis every time, so neglected a lot of macro factors. (The difficulty of striking a balance between individualism vs. collective good within the book is even baked into the theme, but I don't feel Bregman did so effectively.)

I did appreciate that he advocated for the moral instincts of children, which is a belief I'm rather passionate about—respecting kids' intentions and intelligence. I found he was a huge proponent of effective altruism (a fascinating domain about which I have many thoughts, and have read many books both skeptical and supportive, including most recently re: AI in More Everything Forever), and he also really does not like activism as a practice.

Overall Thoughts

If my review feels disjointed, it's because the book largely is too. I found it weirdly contradictory overall, with a tone that didn't quite work—too sweeping to be useful (definitely "could have been an article" vibes) but with strange, specific examples that seemed too personalized to be applicable beyond his subjective judgement.

It also felt like a whole lot of filler. Prose-wise, Moral Ambition often goes "I'm going to tell you about a time when..."

I also found it ironic he railed against "building awareness" as a morally compelling goal, but is that not...his career? Respectfully: I would of course say he seems ambitious, but that and other points made me realize the extent to which the book used "rules for thee but not for me," which is one of the few tonal qualities I find immensely jarring. I didn't get much from it because I'm too fundamentally practical to be able to look past the contradictions.

I respect and agree that action matters more than intentions, but I felt his examples didn't embody his point and sometimes even clashed with it, making his premises unclear and inconsistent.

In fairness, I do think morality as a whole suffers from the issue that you can't properly write about it without the assumption you're elevating yourself to that level; it can be awkward to write about idealism, kindness, etc.

Still, Moral Ambition feels cherry-picked à la Haidt in a way that reduces its impact. I think you'll gain more from picking up other books surrounding the topic.

Verdict? Opt for Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks instead for a look at how best to use your time and trajectory.