Let us start by distinguishing moral nativism from what might be called “altruism nativism.”
Here I use “altruism” in the vernacular sense, to denote certain motivations and actions
performed from those motivations. An altruistic act is one that is done with the ultimate goal
of benefiting another. Whether one succeeds in benefiting the other is irrelevant to whether
the action is altruistic. An act that is done in order to benefit another but only because in
providing that benefit one in turn profits oneself, is not an altruistic act. Since altruism in this
sense requires the cognitive capacity to conceive of oneself and of others, it (and its
contrasting sense of selfishness) can be sensibly ascribed only to cognitively sophisticated
creatures. Indeed, humans are the only undisputable case