Love of Status

ABSTRACT Status is a positional good constituted by the positive approval of others on some evaluative dimension. Skeptics say that pursuing status is ultimately unfulfilling, that it mistakes what we want now for our own final good, that it confuses the approval of others with objectively valuable achievement, and that it puts us into relations of enmity with other humans. I believe these objections are mistaken, and that interrogating them turns up some meaningful virtues of status. Achieving status can confer narrative value. A moment of triumph can change the evaluative valence of the struggles and failures that preceded it. It can also alleviate pressure on future uses of one's agency. With security against sources of identity threat, agents have more latitude for exploration and risk‐taking. Status can thereby help redeem the past as well as open up the future.