Kindness

...So once again, the man who strives for justice, and he above all, realizes (Thomas says) that fulfilling an obligation and doing what he is really obliged to do are not all that is necessary. Something more is required, something over and above, such as liberality, affabilitas, kindness, if man’s communal life is to remain human. Here nothing more (and certainly nothing less) is meant than friendliness in our everyday associations. This “virtue”—and Thomas relates it, too, to justice—is, of course, strictly neither due to another person nor can it be rightfully claimed and demanded. Still it is impossible for men to live together joyfully (delectabiliter) without it. “Now as man could not live in society without truth, so likewise not without joy.”...

From Four Cardinal Virtues by Josef Pieper.

Discussion material (PDF)