Is Altruism Selfish?

If helping others doesn't grant you pleasure (in any form whatsoever), then you may be altruistic, but you would be quite alien to our conception of altruism

The mother that jumps in front a truck to move out of the way the son and is instantly killed by said truck is both altruistic and does not grant pleasure.
I'm tempted to say this is a direct refutation.

Selfishness is moral blind. It is neither inherently good, nor inherently evil.

Then it cannot be a virtue, as you say in the paragraph before.

I believe you need to rethink all the things you want to say and put them in a coherent form.

I'm happy to grant you that, when pondering a specific decision, people always choose the option they feel better with in the moment of making the decision. If they have cravings activated, that sense of feeling better will cash out in terms of near-term hedonism (e.g., buying two packs of crisps and a Ben&Jerry's ice cream for dinner). If they make decisions with the brain's long-term-planning module activated, they will make whichever decision they feel most satisfied with as a person (e.g., choosing to do a PhD even though it means years of stress).

No one purposefully makes a decision that predictably makes them feel worse for having made that decision. In that sense, all decisions are made for "self-oriented" reasons. However, that's a trivial truth about the brain's motivational currency, not a philosophical truth about altruism versus selfishness.

Altruism is about taking genuine pride in doing good things for others. That's not what makes altruism "secretly selfish." It's what enables altruism. It also matters to what degree people have a habit of fighting rationalizations and hypocrisy. Just like it feels good to think that you're being virtuous when in reality you're entitled and in the wrong, it also feels good to spot your brain's rationalizations and combat them. Both things feel good, but only one of them contributes to altruistic ideals.

People are only capable of acting upon their own utility function.

No.

It is impossible for one to act on another's utility function

Depends on what you mean by this. If a paperclip maximizer pays me $100 to produce a paperclip, and I accept the deal because I want the money, do I "act on paperclip maximizer's utility function" here?

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These are some specific mistakes in the text. But there is also a meta-mistake behind them, which is more important, because you are more likely to repeat it in the future. Essentially, you are playing with words (such as "altruism", "selfish", "selfless", "virtue"); you are looking at the map first. Even where you provide a specific example, it seems like you made the conclusion first, and looked for possible examples in the territory later.

How would an opposite approach look like? Perhaps by asking a question "what are examples of things that people call 'doing good to others'?" and trying to collect many different examples. (Using the word "altruism" already means starting at the wrong place. Is "altruism" the same or not the same as "doing good to others"? That is what needs to be explored. Even "good" is a label, but it is much simpler one than "altruism".) The more different examples, the better, because with similar examples you are just repeating yourself.

Is it possible to do good without wanting to do good? Accidentally, by a habit, by misjudging the situation. Is it possible to hurt people while trying to do good? What if different people will evaluate "good" differently; perhaps because of conflict of interest (e.g. you helped someone win in a zero-sum game, the loser hates you), or because long-term and short-term consequences point in opposite direction? ... This all is just the few things that came to my mind during one minute of writing this comment; there are probably things I didn't even touch here.

Then, after having various specific examples, we can start examining whether they have something in common. And it is quite likely to conclude things like "X usually Y, but not always (see this weird example of X745)".

Webster's Definition of altruism

1: unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others - charitable acts motivated purely by altruism

2: behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species

I believe most people think of the first definition. Charity. But I tend to think of Altruism as a sacrifice. If you only had food for you and your family yet you gave it to another family. That act would not be selfish. It would weaken your position.

Perhaps I'm being a bit too mil spec, but I think this is more an exercise in definition and predominance of that definition in society than one of logic or morals. In addition, I think it depends on capacity. It's easier to be altruistic (either definition) when you still have a reservoir of resources to draw from.

Bill Gates giving millions to fight malaria is charity. "The shirt off my back" is altruism.

It is impossible for one to act on another's utility function (without first incorporating it into their own utility function).

This seems tautological and trivially so. Whatever utility function you act on becomes by virtue of that fact "your" utility function.

Perspective, can change the way you try to define a word or action. Perspectives can change based on many things, such as maturity, experience, a long thought process (months, or even years), and circumstances, to list just a few of the infinite possibilities.

A man walking down the street pauses to put some money in a cup of a man who appears to be panhandling. Many people view this event at the same time, but with different perspectives.

One thinks "that's nice, but I wish I had enough to share as well"

Another thinks "sucker! he's just a lazy bum!"

Another thinks "is that helping, or not? I'm not sure"

Another thinks "I see he doesn't just preach kindness, his actions speak louder than his words"

Another thinks "he's an addict and you are just enabling him! you are NOT Helping!"

Another thinks "I can't afford to donate, but I'm going to anyways, I remember when I was on the street...."

I have always had the inclination to give a person the shirt off my back, as the expression goes. I think most of my family, on both sides, grew up that way. But I have also had to learn that to take care of others, you must take care of yourself first. I think I could see and understand all of the perspectives above, as I have lived life and experienced many things, including being homeless twice, and working so much I got employee of the year and made $6,000/month for a few years.

We are capable of mentally or emotionally understanding many perspectives, but they have much more meaning, and clarity, when you have lived through each of them. I thought I knew what the expression "the gift is in the giving" meant when I was younger, but I did not truly understand for many years.

I had helped someone, and someone asked why, when we both thought this person might be just taking advantage of that help, and I explained that it was the right thing to do no matter what, which is a reflection of who I am, and part of my inner peace, AND that the act may have helped someone else, even if we were not aware of it. It was then that it clicked with me, and I felt I truly understood, and I no longer wondered about the people who thought I might be giving to make myself feel better.

The words about my experiences shared above are for you. But even if they do not help you, maybe they will help someone else?

Safe Travels!

People are only capable of acting upon their own utility function.

Kind of by definition. Utility function != self-interest, though. Many of us have expressions in our utility functions for other people's expressed or inferred desires.

I don't think I redefined "selfish".

I think you did. You picked a formal definition that does not match common usage. And you utterly failed to deconstruct why anyone would care either way.

And yet, people, when giving examples of selfishness, don't just sample the entirety of human behavior. They point out a specific sort of behavior. Or when naming optimization functions, they might call one function "greedy," even though all functions tautologically do what they do. So clearly people have some additional criteria for everyday use of the word not captured by the extremely simple definition in this post.