The Abolition of Man is one of Lewis’s more complex and nuanced works of nonfiction. Its subject seems a little too intellectual to be relevant to the common man, but it is actually an incredibly important issue for the whole of mankind. Lewis, as an educator, has noticed a trend in educational textbooks: a tendency to ignore objective value judgments, instead teaching that predicates of value are entirely results of subjective judgments. While this seems like a minor issue, Lewis makes it clear that it is far from minor; a rejection of objective value could have terrible consequences for the human race.
C. S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man" is a critical analysis of contemporary schooling and the erosion of objective moral principles. The 1943 book makes the case that modern educational methods, best exemplified by the textbook "The Green Book," impede the growth of moral character by encouraging relativism and neglecting to foster fundamental values. Lewis argues in favor of the idea of objective morality, sometimes known as the "Tao," as a universally accepted code of ethics. He issues a warning that if this base is abandoned, people will become dehumanized and incapable of moral autonomy, manipulating one another. Lewis highlights in this essay the significance of incorporating moral education in order to uphold human integrity and dignity.
Before he gets into the issue of the abolition of objectivism, however, he uses the first chapter of the three-part book (“Men Without Chests”) to warn about the specific dangers of this kind of indoctrination. He argues that by explaining emotions as mere subjective reactions, the modern educational process essentially inoculates students against emotion, teaching them to write them off as distractions rather than seeing them as worthwhile aspects of life. This deadening of emotion, Lewis says, is equivalent to creating “men without chests:” the head is the intellect and the stomach is visceral desire, and without the chest (the will, or the seat of “emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments”) in between to mediate between the two, man will lose his humanity.
The second part, “The Way,” deals with the terrible effects of the rejection of objective value. Lewis introduces a concept called the Tao, which is a Chinese concept that refers to the order of the universe and the Way of life. Lewis extends the idea of this “Tao” to include the way life works, fundamentally including objective value. He proves that rejecting any of the Tao is akin to rejecting all of it, and by the rejection of objective value renders a person necessarily unable to make value judgments at all. As Lewis explains, from a position outside the Tao, a person may only speak in the indicative: there is no “ought” that can be drawn from proposition alone, and rationality has been discarded along with the rest of the Tao. He ends the section with the proposition of a thought experiment: it is possible to hold a position outside the Tao, but it necessarily includes the abandonment of all gradations of value, instead living in a manner governed by whims and natural desires.
The effects of such a life are explored in the third section, “The Abolition of Man.” Here Lewis argues about the trajectory of Man in the progression of science; eventually, Man’s power over Nature will be complete. This is, however, another way of saying that Man’s power over Man will be complete, using Nature as his instrument. The problem will arise as to what men should have complete power over everyone else. In order to escape the pitfalls of bias, these men must become Conditioners, people specifically designated to determine the fate of humanity while not participating in it themselves. By rejecting the Tao, however, these Conditioners have become slaves to their whims and the suggestions of Nature and therefore are not free at all. Thus Man’s victory over Nature has turned into Nature’s victory over Man.
This future is a terrifying one, and Lewis’s goal in this set of essays is to convince the public of its importance while making a strong case against the abolition of objective value. He succeeds in doing so, and this book, while lesser read than many of his other works, might be a handbook for saving society in the future.
Lewis’s central argument in The Abolition of Man is that humans can be divided into two categories: Men, those who have objective values, and the Conditioners, attempting to abolish objective values. He remains somewhat ambiguous about his own religious beliefs, though he clarifies that the Tao, or objective value system, is universal and unchangeable. He emphasizes that it is not a religion but a way of life. He argues that the Conditioners do not realize the consequences of what they are trying to do. If they succeed, they will only be able to make subjective laws about morality — rules applicable for themselves but not for others. The law would no longer be universal if it were subjective.
Lewis further argues that the Abolition of Man is the inevitable result of the universal adoption of scientism and relativism. The essence of scientism is that all knowledge is scientific knowledge, and all such knowledge is based upon observations recorded in sense data. But sense-data are known only to the observer; by definition, they cannot be communicated to others. This means that there can be no objective truth, only individual subjectivity. In other words, there are no moral absolutes; individuals or groups can do or believe anything without fear of contradiction. Science cannot disprove such behavior because science is limited to the observable world. By rejecting objective reality in favor of subjective reality, the Conditioners are slowly but surely realizing a vision of Man’s perfectibility through genetic manipulation and environmental conditioning; they are working toward a world in which each person conforms perfectly to their environment and thinks precisely as they should according to their social class. The irony is that this vision has no grounding; there are no facts upon which it can be based. It exists solely in the minds of the Conditioners as a utopia that they are morally obliged to bring about, given their rejection of all authority higher than themselves.
