Read Unweaving the Rainbow, which is more or less a whole book designed to refute this conclusion.
I haven't read the book, but the quotation you have given doesn't refute what I am trying to say. I am an enthusiastic participant in the enlightenment - I hope that every post I have made here shows that - and I am not arguing against opening our eyes to the way the world actually works. I am suggesting that in this particular circumstance, I find the analysis of human altruism as a simple function of selfishness an unimportant and potentially damaging one.
I could spend time studying why the frequency of sunlight reaching my eyes makes the sky appear blue to me, but whilst that is interesting, it isn't a study which takes things very far forward. In the same way, I can accept that it is perfectly valid to analyse human altruism as selfishly motivated. I find that analysis, however, dry and academic, and when it comes to my own morality, very empty. It encourages us to be static, accepting and non-aspirational.
If we're going to understand human behaviour, so that we can account for it in our social policies, we have to face the reality of the human creature and not hide behind comforting way in which we would like to be.
You seem to be suggesting that the human creature is simply a creature of pre-programmed responses - pre-programmed selfishly to promote its own survival and that of the species. We can't ever choose to act in a way which is contrary to that programming, because every single choice we could make can be analysed as a selfish choice, from a certain perspective, and in certain circumstances. We think we can choose to be truly altruistic, but we're fooling ourselves - our altruism is delusional - our desire to better ourselves is delusional. We're just robotic products of our genetic and sub-conscious selfish prgramming.
I find that analysis rather nihilistic. I believe that it is a thought process which demeans what we call altruism, and teaches that selfishness is inevitable and at the heart of the human condition.
I can understand the analysis - and I do not believe that I am hiding behind a comforting view of what I would like human behaviour to be. I do think that if people think of themselves as something more than moist robots - who out of a sense of rightness, religious duty, or humanism, can feel that there is some value to altruism outside of selfishness - then we are a better society for that.
But we might not in fact be behaving selfishly. We may actually be behaving selflessly. It's just that our genes are acting selfishly. Or our memes or whatever.
As I've mentioned above, I think that this is an academically interesting and coherent analysis - I just don't think it gets us anywhere (particulary when it comes to accounting for human behaviour in our social policies), to say that behaviour can result from our genes acting selfishly. We can account for behaviour in social policies by accounting for the behaviour - we do not need to work out whether that behaviour is due to selfish genes or memes or whatever.
You're free to try that, but a reasonable examination of the situation would reveal that it is in your self interest to not be (perceived as) a selfish asshole. So even if you are acting purely selfishly, you'll act selflessly.
I agree with that, but there is a repetitive, corrosive and pervasive danger in constantly analysing behaviour in terms of selfishness, and it is that which I was trying to capture with my sentence. If we continually tell people, in a rather detached and academic way, that their whole being, down to their very genes, is selfish, and continually point out to them that even their proudest, most altruistic moment can be explained in terms of selfishness, then we should not be surprised if society gradually becomes more truly selfish and less altruistic over time. Arguably, we are seeing that already. Perhaps merchant bankers might ultimately become our role models