Moral Ambition: What If Your Career Could Change the World?

Moral Ambition: What If Your Career Could Change the World?

Rutger Bregman’s call to put our talents to better use launches a new chapter for Les Epicuriens Bookclub — one that asks not simply how we succeed, but what our success is actually for.

Introducing Pro: A Bookclub for the World of Work

At Les Epicuriens Bookclub, we believe that books can do more than entertain or broaden our horizons. They can challenge the way we think, reshape our ambitions, and occasionally prompt us to reconsider the lives we have chosen to lead.

Today, we are delighted to introduce Pro, a new category dedicated to books for the professionally curious: readers looking to improve their working lives, organise their ambitions, navigate technological change or build greater financial stability.

Pro will host a series of monthly events exploring professional development, emerging technology trends and financial well-being. Gatherings will take place every month, both in person and online. We'll share more details about the programme and upcoming discussions soon.

And what better way to open this new chapter than with a book that asks one of the most uncomfortable questions a professional can face: What, exactly, are you doing with your talent?

The Book: Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman

Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference

There is no shortage of books promising to make us more productive, more successful or more fulfilled. The shelves are crowded with morning routines, efficiency systems and reassuring instructions for getting ahead. Yet Rutger Bregman, the Dutch historian and bestselling author, is interested in a rather different problem: what if we are becoming remarkably efficient at pursuing the wrong things?

In Moral Ambition, Bregman turns his attention to the enormous amount of time and talent invested in careers that may bring personal rewards without contributing much to the wider world. His argument begins with a deceptively simple proposition: professional ambition need not be abandoned in the name of idealism. Instead, it can be redirected.

The book asks readers to reconsider what it means to make something of themselves. Is a successful career one that brings financial security, recognition and professional advancement? Or should we also measure it by the problems we help solve, the people we serve and the legacy we leave behind?

For Bregman, moral ambition is the determination to use one's abilities to make the world substantially better. It is not a call to withdraw from professional life, nor an invitation to mistake good intentions for meaningful achievement. Rather, it argues for bringing the same energy, intelligence, and strategic thinking that often drive conventional success to the challenges that matter most.

Climate change, inequality and the threat of future pandemics are among the issues that frame his appeal. Drawing on historical examples of people who helped bring about significant social change, Bregman explores what made their efforts effective — and what contemporary professionals might learn from them.

The ambition here is not simply to be on the right side of history, but to help make it.

A Different Kind of Professional Success

What makes Moral Ambition an intriguing choice for the launch of Pro is its willingness to unsettle the familiar language of career development.

We are accustomed to asking how we can become better at our jobs, earn more money or move into positions of greater influence. Bregman introduces another question: Are we directing our abilities towards work that deserves them?

This question can be particularly uncomfortable for people who have already invested years in building a career. The book invites us to look beyond the reassuring measures of professional achievement and examine the values that underpin them.

Yet its appeal is not limited to those contemplating a dramatic career change. Moral ambition can also begin with smaller decisions: the projects we choose, the skills we develop, the organisations we support and the ways we use our influence within our existing professions.

This is where the book becomes especially relevant to a professional bookclub. It opens up a conversation about the relationship between personal fulfilment and collective

responsibility, without assuming that the two must be in conflict.

Bregman's proposition is ultimately optimistic: talent, when directed toward meaningful goals, can become a force for positive change.

Whether every reader will agree with his conclusions is another matter. And that, perhaps, is precisely what makes the book worth discussing.

Les Epicuriens Bookclub Discussion

A book such as Moral Ambition is not meant to be read passively. Its most interesting questions emerge when we place its arguments alongside our own experiences, professional compromises, and aspirations.

For our first Pro discussion, we invite readers to consider not only what Bregman argues, but also what his ideas might mean in the context of their own lives.

Questions for the Bookclub

1. Does your work reflect your values?

How closely does your professional life align with the things you believe in? Have you ever felt a tension between what your job asks of you and what you consider meaningful?

2. What stops talented people from making a difference?

Is it financial insecurity, social expectations, fear of failure, professional culture or simply the difficulty of knowing where one's efforts would matter most?

3. What does success really mean?

Can a career be considered successful if it brings financial rewards and recognition but leaves little room for a sense of purpose? How should we balance personal ambition with our responsibilities to others?

4. Can ambition be a force for good?

Bregman challenges the idea that idealism and professional success are opposing forces. Do you agree? Can you think of examples — from the book, history or your own experience — where ambition has contributed to meaningful change?

5. What would you change?

After reading Moral Ambition, is there anything you would approach differently in your professional life or community? Would you make a small adjustment, pursue a new opportunity or reconsider a longer-term ambition?

A Question to Take Away

Imagine looking back on your working life many years from now. Beyond your salary, job title and achievements, what would you hope to have contributed to the world?

It is perhaps the most personal question the book leaves us with — and one that deserves more than a quick answer.

Our Invitation

Moral Ambition is a book for anyone who has ever wondered whether their professional life could amount to something more than the pursuit of conventional success.

It may challenge your assumptions, complicate your ambitions or encourage you to look at your work from an unfamiliar perspective. You do not need to agree with every argument to find value in the questions it raises.

For Les Epicuriens Bookclub, it is an invitation to begin our Pro journey with an open mind and a conversation that reaches beyond the pages.

If you are interested in exploring the relationship between work, purpose and positive change, we invite you to read Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman and join us in the discussion.

Find the book at your local independent bookshop, a major bookseller or online retailers such as Amazon.

Because perhaps the most important measure of a career is not simply how far we go, but what we choose to do with the opportunity to get there.