Is kindness a virtue?

Wikipedia says:

"Kindness is the act or the state of being kind, being marked by good and charitable behavior, pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognized as a value in many cultures and religions (see ethics in religion)."

Kindness as such is a package deal. It bundles together "good" behavior with "charitable" behavior a "pleasant disposition", and "concern for others". That's:

• acting properly
• helping people who need it
• not being grumpy (or "being pleasant")
• caring about others

The first of the above four doesn't help us if we are trying to find why kindness is a virtue.

The other three are debatable, or at least conditional virtues. Taking them in order:

• You should only help people who need it if you can afford to. That is, after you help them, you should be better off than before, taking into account your health, your wealth, and your spiritual state. Helping an evil person who needs it is bad for your soul. Helping a good person, when the price is your own future health and happiness, is not worth it unless they are someone you love.
• An actually pleasant attitude is the result of feeling benevolent. Many people fake a pleasant attitude when they don't feel benevolent at all. This isn't a virtue at all, but is, instead a form of dishonesty and repression which makes a person uglier and uglier over time. Benevolence is an emotion, not a virtue. One should not try to feel any particular emotion, because emotions are automatic. Yes, benevolence is a good emotion to have, but it is a reward of virtue, not a virtue in itself. Don't fake how you feel. Control how you act.
• Caring about others is a fact about your mental motivation. When you care about someone, you are curious about how they are doing -- about whether they are happy. Actually, curiosity is an emotion. It's a desire to know something. Again, like benevolence, since it is an emotion, it is outside the realm of virtue.

Taken as a complex, the above three attributes of a person can be understood as being what other people would like you to be. Most people want kindness in other people. A kind person is someone you can depend on to help you if you need it, they'll have a positive attitude and therefore won't annoy you or bring you down, and they are someone who cares how well you are doing.

Observe, though, that all of the above actions are proper actions towards someone you actually value.

To "be kind," as observed by others, is to treat them as if you value them.

The big question is: do you? If you do, then you should "be kind", though, in fact, there's no moral commandment necessary. We are kind towards people we value. No moralist need "guilt us" into it.

It's only towards people we don't value that the words "be kind" can make any sense, and, in fact, they mean the same as "have mercy." It is this meaning of "be kind" that is relevant in The Fountainhead when Howard Roark says to Peter Keating: "I'm not kind, Peter".

Kindness, in fact, can be a vice. It depends on whom you are being kind to. And when you are being kind to the right people, it's pretty automatic.

So I suggest forgetting about kindness as a virtue. Focus on justice instead. It is the fundamental and crucial virtue regarding the treatment of other people.

Kindness is just "being nice", regardless of how just it is.

Virtues are the actions by which we gain and keep our values.

The primary virtues are: honesty, integrity, independence, justice, pride, productivity and rationality.

I would consider kindness to be a secondary virtue. Secondary, because part of what it means to be kind is to be honest, to have integrity, to be just, and so on.

However, like all virtues, kindness is only a virtue in the proper context. If you are kind to someone at your own expense, out of a sense of duty, or in a self-deprecating way, then that's not a virtue; it's self-destruction.

For someone who truly places themselves first, kindness is a virtue because in order to live a happy and fulfilling life, we need other people; those who are unkind or cruel tend to drive away and alienate others, not attract them.