I am in joyful shock and I have come to believe in providence. Providence is not predictive, it is only the extraordinary narrative of life, told as history.
On this day, 17 December, the ninth anniversary of my lover and wife passing, I received an envelope with a large amount of money, and the note said, “A small gift for you, please enjoy, Kind regards, A Few Friends.” I am speechless, and grateful. I am speechless but I can write, and so I write in gratitude.
To those unnamed friends…
Dedication to the Memory of those Killed at Bondi Beach, 14 December 2025: Hanukkah, a Jewish festival, lasting eight days from the 25th day of Kislev (in December) and commemorating the rededication of the Temple in 165 BC by the Maccabees after its desecration by the Syrians. It is marked by the successive kindling of eight lights. It is a time for forgiveness and all laying down all weapons of warfare, actual and intellectual.
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Abstract
The kindness of friends and strangers is philosophically addressed through the necessary tension between deeply rooted local affections (friends) and universal, impartial benevolence (strangers). Kindness is analyzed as a foundational human disposition that operates both as a spontaneous ethical motivation and as a cognitive procedural necessity for sound thought. Rooted in primordial compassion—the “voice of nature” that moderates egoism—kindness must temper the “coldness of calculation” inherent in abstract rationality. The tension between local and universal concern reflects a core dilemma for the ethical self: while authentic human identity is defined by local loyalties and thick ethical concepts, morality often demands a universal constituency that abstracts away from these defining personal relationships. Resolving this conflict, particularly in an age dominated by technological rationality, requires consciously practicing panser—thinking as caring—to achieve inclusion and full comprehension.
1. Kindness as an Initiator of Ethical Thought: The kindhearted person engages in benevolent acts not primarily under the abstract description of performing a duty (e.g., “I ought to be kind”), but under descriptions that anchor the action in the immediate reality of the recipient’s need. These actions are driven by internal motives such as “she needs it,” “it will cheer him up,” or “it will stop the pain”. The presence of this disposition means that certain observable facts become ethical considerations for that agent,, demonstrating that feelings and desires, and not just pure reason, are crucial for moral choices.
2. The Necessity of Lived Dispositions: The efficacy of ethical deliberation relies on the presence and continuity of such internalized dispositions of character. The ethical life, including the ability to resolve complex conflicts, exists in people’s dispositions. To reject the importance of these foundational traits in favor of focusing solely on abstract obligation is the core error of the morality system. The preservation of ethical value itself lies in the reproduction of ethical dispositions.
II. The Warmth of Origin: Kindness to Strangers and Universal Concern
The ethical concern for strangers is rooted in universal compassion, an instinctual capacity necessary for human social life that, when refined, demands impartiality and equality.
1. Compassion as the Voice of Nature: The roots of kindness trace back to pity and compassion, which are necessary, non-rational instincts essential for human social constitution. This compassion constitutes a “voice of nature in the law of men”, preceding any kind of reflection and functioning as a virtue that moderates the individual instinct of self-conservation. This feeling acts as a warmth of the origin to temper the ensuing isolation and self-concern caused by the “coldness of calculation” that reasoning introduces. This original compassion elevates self-conservation to the level of the species, thereby contributing to the preservation of the whole species.
2. The Demand for Universal Constituency: The ethical demand for kindness to strangers is formulated as the need for a universal concern that extends to all human beings and perhaps beyond. For the specialized morality system, the ethical constituency is always the universal constituency. Utilitarianism, as an ambitious ethical theory, carries this furthest, adopting benevolence as its characteristic moral motive, advocating impartial concern for all desires and satisfactions.
3. The Limits of Impartiality: However, radical universalism faces philosophical and practical impossibilities. The demands of utilitarianism for maximum welfare production are boundless. Furthermore, attempts to enforce impartiality inevitably conflict with human psychological reality. The idea of taking on all the world’s suffering and being guided by that consciousness is described as an ultimate horror and a practical impossibility, as the capacity to care equally about all suffering is a condition of our existence and our sanity. Ethical knowledge, when related to universal concerns, remains local and fails to match up to the ambitions of cognitivism.
III. Local Loyalties and the Kindness of Friends
Kindness to friends and family embodies local loyalties, which provide the dense social foundation necessary for the coherence of the acting self, contrasting sharply with morality’s tendency toward abstraction.
1. Friendship as a Defining Ethical Structure: Local loyalties (such as those to family or community) have provided the fabric of people’s lives and are fundamental to ethical existence. Personal relations, including friendship, are one area where difference of character plays a direct role in the concept of moral individuality. When reflection considers the self, the substantive ethical dispositions that the agent has acquired lie deeper than other wants and preferences and constitute the content of the self.
2. The Conflict with Morality: The moral sentiments, in their purity, cannot be modeled on a view of the world in which every person is at the same distance. When universal, impartial morality must be required to win over local loyalties, it leads to an unreasonable demand on the agent, potentially destroying the very condition of his having any interest in being around in that world at all. The moral system often treats highly committed friendship as pathological if it conflicts with impartial demands, struggling to integrate the non-universal nature of personal attachment.
3. The Necessity of Trust and Cooperation: The ability to cooperate and live ethically depends fundamentally on expectations of reliability secured through interpersonal commitment. Social cooperation is built around principles like reciprocal altruism and depends on repeated, direct personal interaction and the trust relationships generated out of such interactions. In the modern world, relying on thick trust (known individual dispositions and personal relations) is crucial for small societies. The social problem of co-operation in complex societies requires a combination of self-interested micro-motivations and non-egoistic macro-motivations, demonstrating that neither pure self-interest nor pure universalism can solve the dilemma of social instability.
IV. Procedural Kindness: Integrating Care and Calculation
True ethical wisdom requires moving past the impasse between abstract universalism and specific localism by adopting an integrated cognitive procedure that views philosophical inquiry as an act of caring.
1. Panser: Thinking as Caring: The critique of modern technics and calculating rationality requires reinventing the philosophical task of thinking (penser) as caring (panser), which means tending to wounds. This procedural necessity—Compassion-Focused Pedagogy (CfP)—cultivates empathy and compassion as the indispensable human complement to technological function, countering the abstract, universalizing logic of instrumental reason.
2. Inclusion and Empathy: The procedural nature of kindness is integrated within the philosophical methodology of the Dynamic of Cognition (DoC), specifically through the pole of Inclusion. Inclusion requires utilizing Williams’s concept of sympathy (insightful understanding of others’ feelings), recognizing that this capacity is neutral (possessed by both the moral and the cruel) and thus must be consciously applied within the full ethical perspective to convert insight into compassion and inclusion.
3. The Goal of Understanding: This integrated approach facilitates comprehension—always seeking the whole of the matter and filtering out fallacies—by demanding that reflection incorporate truth and truthfulness about our social and historical bearings. The highest philosophical practice is achieved through reflective living, which successfully combines self-understanding and criticism with a truthfulness to the existing self and society. By adhering to this synthesis of caring and calculation, the humanistic project ensures that ethical principles are grounded in the complex, relational reality of both friends and strangers.
Thank you, kind friends and strangers
Featured Image: On this the ninth anniversary of my lover and wife passing, I am reminded of a gift from Ruth on my 30th birthday. It was attaché case, a start to what may be seen as my business of kindness.
Thank you, dear friends. I shall endeavour to be kinder.
Neville Buch
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