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Is this really an 'either ... or' question? Dan Dennett has light-heartedly suggested that a scholar is just a library's way of making another library. I don't know how seriously we need to take this point. Acknowledging that memes exist doesn't make us 'mere' librarians (or meta-libraries, whatever). After all, acknowleding that atoms exist doesn't make us 'mere' collections of atoms.
At times, discussions on cultural evolution get so hung up on memes (the 'atoms' of culture) that they forget about to step back and look at culture holistically. There are lots of emergent cultural patterns which make sense on a level that involves billions of co-existing memes, meme-complexes, meme-pools, etc. Morality is one of these emergent patterns. Morality 'makes sense' but it doesn't preclude the existence of memes.
Morality helps us to 'build something decent and enduring'. In fact, the 'let's build something decent and enduring' meme is quite a pervasive one, and fits neatly into the morality meme-pool. I'd guess that the 'let's build something decent and enduring meme' has been re-invented at many different times and in many different human cultures. (Re-invention is quite legitimate in evolution - the eye has evolved many different times; there are different eye lineages).
One last point about the morality meme-pool: any meme that fits into the morality set has a survival advantage, becuase morality fits well with our *genetic* desires. It seems that we have a moral 'instinct' which favours the survival of morality memes. By the same token, we have a sexual instinct which favours the survival of sex-related memes. Lastly, we have *many* instincts (our tendency to ask why? why? why? are we here, etc.) that favour the survival of 'God' and 'faith' memes - AND the 'meme' meme!!!
Michael H.
'God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.'