Honey is Good

The other day I was watching the magic school bus with my young son; they were learning about bees and honey. One of the characters says, “We shouldn't take the honey, the bees didn't make it for us” and another character replies with “But if we don't take the honey, then I won't have any? I want the honey”.This struck me as close to a “First argument”. Thanks to evolution, an organism wouldn't exist if it didn't want to survive. The first argument is "Survival is Good" and Survival = Calories = Sugar = Sweet taste = Honey. You could say that for an organism made by genes, “Honey is Good” is a load bearing rule. This rule is encoded in genes. Following the rule increases organism survival and not following it harms survival rates.I’ve been thinking about a more esoteric organism, a culture / society, not made from genes, but from memes and gene-built organisms, Dawkins virus of the mind but literally and with the negative valence stripped away, say a mind siphonophore. Specifically I've been thinking about what a “first argument” looks like for such a being, lets call it a culture for the purposes of this article.Of course, “Honey is good” can result in the destruction of bees and a subsequent dip in quarterly honey production. Something that is good for an individual right now conflicts both with an individual's long-term interest and that of the culture that individual belongs to. For a culture to survive, as is its imperative under cultural evolution, it must have memes to co-ordinate its host organisms (its society) and manage these conflicts, say “Hurting the bees is bad” encoded in a meme. Following the rule increases the cultures survival rate.Do you grok the correlation?What “Morality” isI would say that the collection of coordinating rules a society has is named “Morality” and any particular set is a moral system.In this essay, I am making a case about what “Morality” is and not what it tells you to do. What this view lets you do is a follow up article. Bri