Topics Ethics

Question If you are a promising young human being, say anywhere beyond the usual average, is there something like a moral obligation to make something great out of your talent? (Or asked another way: is somebody with great talent more obliged to achieve something great than any other person? See, this question is about one LIFE: taking huge pains, giving up trying to reach normality, all for the one reason of ART which is considered as a state of higher consciousness or whatever; a thing which begins to smell foolish to me and which I question more and more each day - without getting pessimistic, though.) Or is this whole should-would-could-thing just a question of decision?! Isn't life generally speaking just what you CAN and then what you WANT and at last what you DECIDE? I would be downright thrilled about getting an answer.. thx. (Wow, I don't speak english, I had to work on this question for more than an hour.. or actually I began working on it over 18 years ago... who knows, who cares!)

Accepted:
May 30, 2006

Comments

Many philosophers -- including Immanuel Kant -- have believed that each of us a duty to fulfil our talents. Often the view emerges out of a religious world view in which we are here to serve some divine purpose and are, in some sense, under the command of, or even owned by, God. Modern liberal views tend to involve something like John Stuart Mill's liberty principle, according to which no coercion -- legal, moral, or social -- is to be applied to others on the ground that it will benefit the coerced themselves. That raises the question whether the kind of person you are describing -- who *suffers* for their art -- will in fact be made better off if they are motivated to develop their talents through guilt, shame, or fear of the opprobrium of others. In many cases, of course, moral pressure won't work anyway. But what about a case in which the lives of others won't go as well if the talented individual gives up on her project? Isn't a potential Mozart obliged to use their gift to benefit others? Perhaps, in highly exceptional cases. But even if Mozart had decided to spend his life bowling and playing billiards, there would have been plenty of excellent music for people to enjoy. There's also a question about whether anyone in the developed world has any aesthetic obligations when there is so much serious suffering which could be alleviated and which might be thought to have a significantly stronger moral claim even on the highly talented.