ABSTRACT
Kin-selection makes possible the spread of tendencies which are - considered as real motives - thoroughly unselfish in the ordinary sense, such as affection for one's children and the wish to help those in danger. If 'selfishness' means what sociobiologists say it means - a tendency to maximize one's own future gene-spread - it is directly displayed already in all care given by parents to children. Insofar as animals possess genetically mediated tendencies to behave for the benefit of another, the logic of evolution demands that these tendencies be grounded in underlying selfishness. The hypocrisy involved in pretending to be altruistic would indeed be impossible in the world he invokes, and the scandalized, hysterical air of a hero unmasking villainy would be quite meaningless. The tendency to increase one's own gene- spread is not one motive lying hidden under another in the psychological layering, but a quite separate kind of causal property.
