My Bloughts (Blog+thoughs)

[Joao Arnaldo Vembane]

Hey guys,

You can access some of my thoughts through: http://entreosdireitoseomarketing.blogspot.com/
You will find different articles of different issues (always related to politics, philosophy and economy) - some in Portuguese and others in (my funny) English. Some of these articles are published with Jornal Zambeze (page10).

This is the way I found to improve my own knowledge and interact with great intellectuals that you are. Like the Arabic proverb says: "Qira'aton swaidon wal kitabaton kaidon" (reading is like hunting and writing is like binding).

Enjoy reading and (most important) share your thoughts with me!
________________________________________________________
Estimados,

Poderao aceder aos meus pensamentos atraves do site: http://entreosdireitoseomarketing.blogspot.com/
Encontrarao diferentes artigos em assuntos diferentes (mas sempre relacionados com politica, filosofia e economia) - alguns em portugues e outros em (meu engracado) Ingles.Alguns destes artigos sao publicados pelo Jornal Zambeze (pag10).

Esta e a forma que encontrei para melhorar o meu conhecimento e interagir com grandes intelectuais que voces sao. Como diz o proverbio arabe: "Qira'aton swaidon wal kitabaton kaidon" (a leitura se assemelha ao acto de caca e a escrita ao acto de amarrar a presa).

Divirtam-se na leitura e (mais importante) partilhar os vossos pensamentos comigo!

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Thanks Joao for yielding to my request and posting this blog. I know how engaged you are. Best of luck for the KF. I look forward to stories and videos.

[Joao Arnaldo Vembane]

Hey Gaston and Laurence,

 

Thank you very much for your inputs. Indeed my intention in posting on it is to gain more from comments that will be provided. Like both of you have obliged me to explore deeper.

 

I like the theory of "creating capabilities", indeed the quantitative models that are used to measure poverty or development are ignoring a very basic reality - "not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted"...

 

Of course Laurence, one of challenging areas in philosophy is that we sometimes take words for granted, and there is sometimes need to re-explore their meanings. For instance Aristotle has seen happiness on virtue. I however take into account that words, on their side have been changing their meanings over time.

 

I agree with you that Mills make a doubtful statement that "the fact that each person desires something it will automatically  imply that together we all desire everyone’s happiness." As I commented on my conclusion in the essay, "We can not assume that just because everyone is struggling to reach own happiness that would make the happiness for everybody." We need to consider happiness also in the context of group, community, society and (why  not?) humanity.

 

Thank you for you comments again

[Laurence Gilliot]

Hi Joao,

 

A few reflections came to my mind when reading your blog:

- why would happiness be pleasure? I think that we need to look at the definition of pleasure and see if this is TRUE happiness.

- I was wondering if the thinking of Mills is about individual happiness and pleasure. For me this is the big issue today. We all make choices based on our individual well-being. The whole capitalistic system is based on this principle. But we forgot about the community and the Earths well-being. We buy stuff for our own pleasure but we are destroying our planet...

We think that happiness is in having more tangible stuff. We forgot all about love and care.

 

Laurence

[Gaston]

Interesting Joao. I like the blog on utilitarian theory (John Stuart Mill). At the same time, there are some serious drawbacks to this theory in (development) practice. In my experience, I found the Capabilities theory of Amartya Sen/ Martha Nussbaum very useful to address these challenges. The last book 'Creating Capabilities' of Nussbaum explains how the theories stand next to each other. Extremely interesting. I'll quote some more on specifically that later.