Whether ot not altruism exists is, to me, mostly interesting in the realm of behavioural ecology; to explain why we behave like we do. And then I prefer terms like reciprocal kindness or sexual selection or kin selection or what have you because they help explain the (selfish) mechanism which drives the evolution of the behaviour. Altruism as a term is not very explanatory and does not really drive the evolution of behaviours. I mean sure, you could look at a sacrificial behaviour evolving, but unless you've found it already, you're probably looking for the real selfish motivation behind it. After all, if it really was altruistic, natural selection should work against it.
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