Dissolving the elusiveness of altruism

Rachlin provides an impressive integrative view of altruism and selfishness that helps us correct older views. He presents a highly general theory, even though he is aware of context-dependence of key notions, including altruism. The context-dependence should extend much farther than Rachlin allows it to go. We had better replace theoretical notions of altruism and selfishness by common sense.