It is absolutely possible for one to be kind and selfless at the same time. Taylor and Phillips have a good argument but are not looking at this subject head on, but using history and psychology to skirt the issue of kindness.
Why should someone feel ambivalent about “our instinct for kindness?’ The authors present the idea of ambivalence starting with the teachings of Christ being misrepresented by those that followed. I find that this could have been the downfall of kindness as a selfless flaw in human behavior. True, the idea of kindness can be “hazardous” when based on the susceptibility of others and believing “pleasures and kindness are inherently perilous.” What then of the people who went to New Orleans to help dig out people and find ways of ferrying them to safety? What then of those that went to Haiti to help rescue those still under the rubble? Perhaps some did go for personal gain, but I believe that out of kindness for those in dire trouble the American people took to the challenge out of concern.
Taylor and Phillips state that we deny ourselves the pleasure of being kind because we are suspicious. Going back to previous years, it was men, not women, who had the ideas that kindness was either only from God and not man, or, someone wanted something in exchange. This is all learned behavior. When raised with kindness and the belief that we should be kind without being reciprocated in some way, the example we are taught becomes part of our human make up and follows us through life. This is not to say that the book by Taylor and Phillips is wrong, it is just their interpretation of what kindness is.
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