Jesus said something very similar...
"Be careful not to do your acts of rightesness before men to be seen by
them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven."
"So, when you give to the needy do not announce it with trumpets, as the
hypocrates do in the synagoges and on the streets, to be honoured by
men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But, when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then
you father, who see what is done in secret, will reward you." Matt
6:1-4
> The concept is, thus, very like <God>, and <Faith>...an approximation one
> waves a hand towards when invoking things far beyond their grasp.
We are in serious need of an intellectual tool to deal with issues like
these. Dennett's "intentional stance" works sometimes. Memetics works
sometimes. Reverse engineering (bottom/up thinking) works sometimes.
But in the end, we still bottom out at "definitions"... we *still* need
a way to know what we are talking about, even with these cool tools.
And it's like John said: sometimes, we just can't be sure we *do* know
what we're talking about.
> I could argue that the legal system was self-generated for no end other than
> to perpetuate itself. This would be memetically consistent. Thus, from a
> memetic perspective, the burden of proof would rest with you (or someone
> else) to PROVE that a legal system actually does, or even INTENDS to do
> something "good".
The only "good" that the justice system does is *suppress* and *punish*
(or at least try to do same) "bad".
ERiC