Progressive logic

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Progressive Logic is an attempt to describe the logic of progressive moral values and makes the claim that these values have always motivated American progressives. As presented by Dr. William J. Kelleher, it is a unified field of values that progressive activists and voters have shared for generations, but without being fully aware of it. Dr. Kelleher describes the history of Progressives in the United States as support for this thesis. For example, the statement that all men are created equal, penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, while reflecting a gender bias common at the time, presupposes progressive logic. The thesis claims that progressive logic first became a dominant force in American politics with the abolitionist movement that culminated tragically in the Civil War.

Contents 1 Source 2 Basis 3 How used 4 Types 5 History examples 6 See also 7 References

[edit] Source

Dr. William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. is the author of several books, including "Progressive Logic", the source of the remainder of the material in this article.

[edit] Basis

Progressive Logic is based on the value premise that all persons always deserve positive regard.

Prior to the time that progressive logic was clearly defined, progressive activists, and their supporters, could only have acted without self-awareness of the value logic that moved them. This is because they lacked the education they needed about their value logic. Unfortunately, what progressives don’t know can, and has, hurt them.

History shows that lack of self-awareness has prevented progressive activists from unifying around a long-term political program based on their until now unknown value logic. The history of progressive politics tells a sad tale of groups acting with intensity to have their basic premise realized in political institutions only to fall into disarray as their short-term projects are satisfied. Abolition, anti-child labor and pro-public education, workers rights, women’s liberation, civil rights, and various anti-war movements are just some of the high points of progressive activism. But these successes have depended upon chance events, not a unity of principles or long-term agenda. Progressives would not have reached these peaks of performance without the chance occurrence of charismatic leadership inspiring activists to join together and prod the American conscience into supporting the cause of the moment. In periods when charismatic leadership is lacking, or events do not have sufficient saliency to pull them together, progressives lose sight of their potential for unity and fall into hair-splitting ideological disputes.

[edit] How used

Progressive logic can serve as an intellectual guidance system for progressive political behavior. Of course, extensive public education about progressive logic is required to form a base that will sustain action following a long-term agenda.

Progressive activists can succeed at the task of forming a unified political base in public opinion. Teaching progressive logic to the public will manifest respect and honor, for the rationality of people – a novel approach in political rhetoric. Human beings crave clarity in thinking about their values, but they are mostly ignorant about how to achieve such clarity. When they are shown clarity in values, they respond to it appreciatively. That is why progressives have had their moments of success in American history. Consider how the subculture of the American South has changed radically under the guidance of progressive logic over the past century and a half.

To be effective, the basic premise that all persons always deserve positive regard requires commitment. Its full potential for political unification can only be reached by individuals who are engaged in both an internal struggle to stick with it, and an external struggle to overcome political opposition.

Among Americans, there is a spectrum of value sensitivity. Those with a strong intuitive sense of the intrinsic worth of others are likely to be the leaders in the process of inspiring those persons to join the progressive movement towards unification. The strongest opposition to political change will come from the people who are the most value challenged. These conservatives tend to value other people instrumentally, as pawns in the game of politics. Their political money will come from those who profit most from our manipulative economy and its derivative consumer culture. In the political process, blindness to the intrinsic value of other persons enables those who lust after the joys of exercising power to work their will. The future of American politics will largely be a process of sorting out participants by their value sensitivity.

[edit] Types

The knowledge of progressive logic has been made possible by the emerging "Value Science" based on the formal axiology of Robert S. Hartman. His writings on axiology enable the student of values to see that two primary logical fallacies and two primary logical enhancements necessarily follow from the basic premise of progressive logic that all persons always deserve positive regard.

• It is fallacious (unreasonable) to think that ideas are more important than people.

Southerners who fought to defend the idea of slavery, for example, valued that idea above the real persons who suffered under it. Men who value the idea of male superiority are necessarily insensitive to the pain they cause the women who suffer as a result of that idea being implemented in society. This is the ideological fallacy.

• It is also inconsistent to think that objects are more important than people.

The industrialist who regards workers as mere appendages to his machines is blind to the intrinsic value of other persons. The advertiser who views individuals as opportunities for manipulating economic behavior commits the same fallacy of value logic, which values people as things. This is the instrumental fallacy.

• Ideas that lead people to increase their awareness of the intrinsic value of themselves and of others are ideological enhancements.

All progressive movements have succeeded by virtue of such ideas. Instrumental enhancements consist in using individuals in ways that improve the quality of their lives. Public education, in theory, is a process of using young people as students, not to disvalue them, but to enhance the quality of their lives.

These tools of analysis will enable progressive thinkers, policy makers, and legislators to check the logic of their proposed policies and bills for their consistency with the basic premise of progressive logic. Courts, too, can use these tools to analyze the value logic of statutes, practices, and judicial opinions.

Progressive logic can provide the intellectual guidance needed to enhance the dignity and the quality of life of all persons beyond anything any utopian dreamer ever imagined. American politics can be an engine for the promotion of good that operates with as much efficiency and success as any government has ever done in the promotion of evil. That result, as Hartman understood, is the final aim of value science.

[edit] History examples

This has been present in many issues such as:

• Abolition and the Civil War
• Child labor and public education
• Consumerism and the loss of community
• Criminal justice system as Christian theater
• The quality of life revolution
• Abortion and the right to die
• Religion in politics
• Framing a winning strategy for a new New Deal.
• Selling self-published books on Amazon.com

[edit] See also

• American liberalism
• George Lakoff
• Progressivism
• Robert S. Hartman
• Science of Value
• William J. Kelleher

[edit] References

• The Empathic Science Institute