I would like to argue that altruistic behavior is derived from the valuing of a good that one has shared with the one for whose sake one acts. The problem, however, seems to be that the altruist doesn't hope to enjoy that common good: that is, if you give your life to save your children, then once you're dead you are no longer enjoying the good of community. But at the moment you are acting for their good, you are sharing in some sense sharing that good with them and possibly doing so more abundantly than you otherwise could. So you not only act so that they will live well later on, but to be with them-later-on right now.
How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...
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