A genius amongst fools is not intemperate, but patient, like a teacher. Picasso was a hack, a talented technician but uninspired, merely gifted at presenting himself and his work as revolutionary when the only revolution in it is his hype of it. But the point is, is the quality of being human or talented or competent a determinate state or a dramatic issue that needs to be given every chance to show itself? Is it really true that there must be so clear a distinction between opportunities and outcomes? The fact of the matter is that most successful people in the world are really just lucky. They might bring something to the effect, but others denied the chance might have done as well. Do we have any responsibility to rectify this in our judgment of success or quality? People who believe in "salvation" have a problem, they have to explain the difference between those who are and are not "saved".  We could claim predestiny, or that personal effort might prevail even over a dubious beginning. But this would make the job too hard or too easy, and cheat the believer of the right to divide the world while yet retaining a promise of a better outcome. The solution, of course, is an extrinsic factor such as the divine intercession believers call "grace". But what of those left out? The real issue is that there cannot  be allowed to develop a system of judgment that cheats the unlucky of their deserved life. And, invariably, that is what any such system becomes. America is rife with such injustice, the very question raised here is part of it.

Before you go and measure others Laura, may I suggest you try to measure yourself. And once you find the measurement of self you will find the measurement is equal to everything not just everyone else. The light at the end of the tunnel, Socrates quest for truth, the unspeakable truth of the Eastern Masters, Adam and and Eve before they ate from the tree of knowledge, Dr. Kings Promised Land, the unifying equation Einstein died searching for, what men fight and die for, what the Civil (?) War was fought for, the quest is for the answer to your questions. Oneself is the answer to the questions you seek, the answer to everything. Science has proven Nature to be quantum mechanical probability at best. Beyond their and your uncertainty is the absolute, the truth!
Be One,
PS: The proof Laura is right here. =
 
 

Great post, Laura! Lots to think about in here.
First off, how do you define a good person? The metric's completely subjective, but I think a good one to use, generally, is this: how much suffering one either caused and allowed or alleviated and prevented in their lifetime for others. It's not original by any stretch of the imagination (paging Dr. Mill), but it's both qualitative and quantitative in terms of its measurement of impact. How much (directly or indirectly) did they cause someone to suffer, and how many people did they cause to suffer? Obversely, how much did their contributions alleviate or prevent suffering, and how many people did they help?
It's here we get into the swampy moral quandary of arbitrarily declaring someone to be "better" than others. In Picasso's case, yes, he absolutely treated the women in his life poorly. There's no excuse to be had in that realm for him, as he caused them to suffer and suffer deeply through his actions. But through his art, any number of lives could arguably have been improved in some small way by his work and the feeling it embodied and continues to exhibit. 
  

Is the question whether some people don't get the recognition they deserve or whether those who get recognition deserve it? The point is, you don't have to be special or even want to be to be denied, precisely because some people get what they do not deserve and see to it others do not get what they do deserve. Doesn't this mean that the real question is how to get the undeserved out of the way of the deserved? Anyone who has tried to get around a biased system knows exactly what I mean. You don't have to be a genius or a human dynamo to be denied what you've earned. And there is really not a lot of difference between the intellectual who asks if some people are just better and the conservative who fulminates against "bleeding heart liberals" "giving 'them' what 'they' want." It's just the other side of the coin. It's a theme that has been kicking around since pre-literate kings had their images carved in great stone monuments. Usually it is the too well recognized as "better", or those who benefit from the injustice and dishonesty of it, who keep the theme prominent. Covert themes justifying prejudice is an ugly business. Let's talk instead about a more comprehensive idea of merit. How about Rawls's contrast between the 'maximin' and 'minimax'?

Or, Jude the Obscure?

The Charmides of Plato expresses the question as a kind of headache that needs a charm to complete the cure. But what is the charm? It is not in the possession of the one we suppose is so charmed us we make him the exception to the ordinary state we all suffer. But does he take the charm with the cure? Or just give us all headaches?

Indeed, Mr. Sherman, I couldn't agree more. It is just this kind of thinking that led to the birth and subsequent dominance of the Nazi Party in Europe, and which was used to justify its many heinous crimes against untold innocent millions prior to and during World War II. 

Here, here! This particular episode of Philosophy Talk was not just insulting to anyone capable of seeing beyond their nose, it was stupid and pointless. There is no absolute by which an objective decision can be made about the inherent worth of any individual human being. Once we postulate that there is, we are headed down a very short path to an elitist society in which any act can be justified by any arbitrarily chosen set of values which are convenient at that moment to the purposes of the elite. That Mr. Hurka can't seem to recognize this simple fact, proven over and over again by the history of human civilization, says a great deal to me about the nature of his intelligence. This was a pointless conversation, in that Mr Hurka's ideas can only be defended by tautological reasoning. Ultimately, it becomes a conversation about whether or not Mr Hurka gets to be King of the World. Surely we all could have found a better way to spend the hour? 

I suggest (respectfully or otherwise) that Mr Hurka hang out his Nazi flag and be done with it. An ethical (note, I did not say 'moral') society that works for everyone can not be established by this kind of thinking. There are no objective criteria by which the worth of an individual human being can be judged as "better" than another's. Clearly, however, based on what I heard of Mr Hurka's conversation during this program, Mr Hurka does not overly concern himself with such petty matters as ethical values and a world that works for all. Instead he makes a pretense of objectivity through intellectually massaging the idea that suffering can be justified by the noble deeds of the superior being. What a waste of air time.

Some claim of personal virtue has always been used by elites to justify injustice. Aristotle made a major point of the "nobility" of the upper classes and the ignominy of those capable only of servitude. In the Christian era it soon became a critical point of friction to explain the difference between the saved and the damned. Gnostics believed that if Christ could work miracles his followers should too. Arians insisted that as human Christ must be more like us than divine. Manes claimed that the barrier between the divine and the profane must be so hermetic that salvation and damnation must be predetermined. Pelagius claimed we could aspired to the divine nature through activities that tended to make us grow more akin to it. It all comes down to the issue of what person is, and how it can be that we are and know this entity so anomalous to the natural or divine order. Augustine invented the idea of grace, as a divine dispensation that enforces the hermetic seal between god and human but allows for an occasional penetration, always unilateral. The church ran with it. But it got so caught-up in straggles over who would run the world that the vexatious tensions implicit in the idea went neglected, and it became a commercial and very profitable product to sell "grace". Many unprisings against this marketing of divine favor came and went before Luther finally occasioned a breach in the church, but even he cannot really lay claim to the Reformation. It was Anne Boleyn who insisted upon that break with Rome that drove the Reformation forward. But her motive was a feudal concept of what person is. That concept bases all human intercourse upon the idea of a personal covenant. This was the basis of all feudal law, a relationship of "honor" between a titled lord and his knight to share in lands in return for fighting at his side. It was a relation of equals and of intimacy, not of abstract law. The institution of scripture in the vernacular made it possible to suppose such a relationship with the god itself. This became the paradigm of Protestantism. A feudal covenant directly with the divine. But theorists like Luther had a problem, how do you distinguish the saved from the damned? His solution was to note that some people are just always positive, facing the vicissitudes of life with good cheer, while most grumbled. And so, we distinguish the saved because "we just know". It's a kind of mania, the Greeks called it "thumos", a pathological condition from which we derive the world "enthusiasm". And so we divide the world between the manic and the depressed. It is certainly the American disease that you are not permitted to succeed in life unless you display "enthusiasm". The rest get the short end. And so who is "better"? The question rather highlights the mania that inspires it.
 

I like your article, as it investigates the exact issue I should write my school paper on: Do achievements excuse any kind of generally unacceptable behavior?  and it helps me find out where to start from. Basically it feels like being written by one of the professional writers from academic centers (more info here).
 

We as humans have imperfections. It is essential to always have a positive attitude and a slightly comic view to life. We are not created perfect, it's only a matter of choice how we bring our life all through out the wilderness whether good or bad in deeds.
Might as well we can help you guide to become a better person, feel free to connect with us.
Blessings!
https://www.zenethculture.com/life-and-your-numbers/

I like your question and your article. I was asking myself this, just this morning... which is how I found this. I am a fan of engaging conversation, contemplation and truth. You are very much so right, from where I am looking: We are not all equally talented, skilled, so on. To think so is just ignorant, in the most genuine sense. You can just look at our bodies and behaviors and see that we are made differently. Nature does not care if you want to be born healthy with all four limbs and able to produce life-altering theories. Nature simply is and will be. But does that rob us of equal value? No. Love, consideration, kindness, unity, systemic need, and nature dictates... that we are all of equal value. The most revered leaders can see this with clarity, I theorize, as it is mandatory for wellness for all. We all have our place and purpose. I don't find that to be spiritual or religious - that is just nature. That is just us. I want to challenge your notion that we can't both support the good, beauty and wonder of Picasso... while simultaneously not approving of his mistreatment of the people in his life. In fact, we (as a collective) have *already* uplifted his art... and condemned some of his other personal, life choices. The book of public opinion has already been written on this (which you appear in agreement with) and influenced the perspective of all of us here. The collective of humanity is consistently expressing how we define ourselves and others - not just how we have or how we are going to, but how we DO and always will. We may draw back and return, like the tides, but what is, is.

We have to get past the initial objection to Jefferson's "All men are created equal." baloney. Clearly, the man was not an idiot and he knew, as do we all, that "all men are decidedly unequal in almost every conceivable aspect."

So the question is, what was he trying to say, and why didn't he just "spit it out"?

In my opinion, he meant that all men should be (should have the right to be) treated equally by the law, and by the state (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing.) By the way, maybe an historical linguist could help me out here, but did he mean "all males" or "all people?" Given the day and age, it is not inconceivable that he meant the former.

The trouble with these flowery pronouncements is that people hang on to them like drowning "men" will clutch at straws ("freedom to bear arms" is another one) without really thinking about them. Maybe it's time to re-write the constitution, or at least translate it into modern English.

And if I may take the liberty of adding what I am sure most people (at least most liberals) would agree on, "and be afforded equal opportunities by all societal institutions."

So, I propose this re-wording of Jefferson: "All people have the right to be treated equally by the law and by the state and all people must be afforded equal opportunities by every societal institution and organization."

There! Now why didn't he think of that? lol

Have a nice day. (Nobody reads this blog anymore anyway!)

A good percentage of people in the world aren't very nice and they go right up to hideous. They create nothing. They just die in the end.

Then I hear of those with a gift where it goes to their head and they start hurting people. This makes them a special case. They don't get off hurting people no matter what they create. So we MUST punish them. But we must make the punishment so it doesn't stop them from making MORE of whatever they are doing because we as a species NEED more good ideas, art and all the rich harvest of the creative mind.