We cooperate for game theoretic reasons. Then we explain them as being angelic, altruistically driven impulses. Which framing is "true?" Does it matter?
Both? I've thought for a while that people are rarely wrong about their motivations, but often think of them as more general than they really are. If someone's going to claim altruistic reasons for doing something cooperative, it's both simpler (from the outside) and less dissonant (from the inside) if their claims correspond to an actual altruistic impulse -- yet those impulses rarely extend to outgroup members.
I agree, one can hold both the conflicting views that "we're all selfish replicators" versus "we're all flawed altruists" like the vase-versus-face interpretation of the Rubin vase or alternate spatial interpretations of a Necker cube. They're both metaphors, basically. Like you say, the danger of overinterpreting the altruistic interpretation is to expect too much altruistic behavior, and the danger of overinterpreting the cynical interpretation is to fail to account for actual love and kindness when you see it.
Incidentally I think H...
This is the earlier promised post about Dealing with a Major Personal Crisis. Please continue reading there but comment here.
The reasons for posting it this way are explained at the end of the link. I hope this approach does what I want it to.