By God, I'll not lose Hardy!

Hi, anon!

Based on what Tolkien himself wrote about Sauron and his motivations, yeah, I do.

This page has a handy compendium of what Tolkien wrote about the nature of evil in his work, and about Sauron and Morgoth, from which I've drawn some quotes:

In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit. [...] When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless.

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Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth, 'neglected by the gods', he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power – and so consumed ever more fiercely with hate (especially of gods and Elves). Sauron was of course not 'evil' in origin. He was a 'spirit' corrupted by the Prime Dark Lord (the Prime sub-creative Rebel) Morgoth. He was given an opportunity of repentance, when Morgoth was overcome, but could not face the humiliation of recantation, and suing for pardon; and so his temporary turn to good and 'benevolence' ended in a greater relapse, until he became the main representative of Evil of later ages.

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I would also add this passage from Morgoth's Ring:

He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction.

So, in short, yes. Based on the things written here and elsewhere, Sauron canonically seems to have viewed himself as a reformer and restorer of Middle-earth, wishing to bring order to things, but overwhelming pride and hatred perverted these "fair motives" until he became "a thing lusting for Complete Power". That seems to be how Tolkien viewed the character, and that's good enough for me.