 First edition | |
| Author | C. S. Lewis |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Value andnatural law |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | 1943 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Hardcover andpaperback |
| Preceded by | A Preface to Paradise Lost |
| Followed by | Beyond Personality |
| Text | Abolition of Man online |
| Part of a series on |
| Human enhancement |
|---|
 |
(De facto) germline interventions |
Somatic interventions |
Opposition
|
The Abolition of Man is a 1943 book byC. S. Lewis. Subtitled "Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upperforms of schools", it uses a contemporary text about poetry as a starting point for a defense of objectivevalue andnatural law. Lewis goes on to warn readers about the consequences of doing away with ideas of objective value. It defends "man's power over nature" as something worth pursuing but criticizes the use of it to debunk values, the value of science itself being among them. The title of the book then, is taken to mean thatmoral relativism threatens the idea of humanity itself. The book was first delivered as a series of three evening lectures atKing's College, Newcastle, part of theUniversity of Durham, as the Riddell Memorial Lectures on 24–26 February 1943.
Lewis begins with a critical response to "The Green Book" by "Gaius and Titius":The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing, published in 1939 by Alexander ("Alec") King and Martin Ketley.[1]The Green Book was used as a text for upperform students in British schools.[2]
Lewis criticises the authors for subverting student values and claims that they teach that all statements of value (such as "this waterfall is sublime") are merely statements about the speaker's feelings and say nothing about the object.[3] Such a view, Lewis argues, makes nonsense of value talk. It implies, for example, that a speaker who condemns some act as contemptible is really only saying, "I have contemptible feelings."[4]
By denying that values are real or that sentiments can be reasonable,subjectivism saps moral motivation[4] and robs people of the ability to respond emotionally to experiences of real goodness and real beauty in literature and in the world.[5] Moreover, Lewis claims that it is impossible to be a consistent moral subjectivist. Even the authors ofThe Green Book clearly believe that some things, such as improved student learning, are truly good and desirable.[6]
Lewis cites ancient thinkers such asPlato,Aristotle andSt. Augustine, who believed that the purpose of education was to train children in "ordinate affections", to train them to like and dislike what they ought and to love the good and hate the bad. Lewis claims that although such values are universal, they do not develop automatically or inevitably in children. Thus, they are not "natural" in that sense of the word, but they must be taught through education. Those who lack them lack the specifically human element, the trunk that unites intellectual man with visceral (animal) man, and they may be called "men without chests".
Lewis criticizes modern attempts to debunk natural values, such as those that would deny objective value to the waterfall, on rational grounds. He says that there is a set of objective values that have been shared, with minor differences, by every culture, which he refers to as "the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew...". Lewis calls that theTao, from theTaoist word for the ultimate "way" or "path" of reality and human conduct. (Although Lewis saw natural law assupernatural in origin, as evidenced by his use of it as a proof oftheism inMere Christianity, his argument in the book does not rest on theism.)
Lewis argued that the "chest," which he viewed as the seat of emotions and moral instincts, is essential for connecting reason (the head) with appetites (the belly). Without this connection, individuals become detached from their emotions and moral compass, leading to a lack of virtue and enterprise.[7]
Without theTao, no value judgments can be made at all, and modern attempts to do away with some parts of traditional morality for some "rational" reason always proceed by arbitrarily selecting one part of theTao and using it as grounds to debunk the others.
The final chapter describes the ultimate consequences of this debunking: a not-so distant future in which the values and morals of the majority are controlled by a small group who rule by a perfect understanding ofpsychology, and who in turn, being able to see through any system of morality that might induce them to act in a certain way, are ruled only by their own unreflected whims. In surrendering rational reflection on their own motivations, the controllers will no longer be recognizably human, the controlled will be robot-like, and the Abolition of Man will have been completed.
An appendix toThe Abolition of Man lists a number of basic values seen by Lewis as parts of theTao, supported by quotations from different cultures. Thedystopian ideas inAbolition of Man are fleshed out in Lewis's science fiction novel,That Hideous Strength, as Lewis himself makes clear in the preface of the story.[8]
While the book was considered a favourite of the author, Lewis believed it was "almost totally ignored by the public."[8]
By the 21st Century that was no longer true, at least amongst intellectuals, both Christian and non-Christian.[9]Jonah Goldberg has assessed it to be "one of the greatest books" of its era as it is helping preserve ideas ofmoral absolutism.[10][9] The Catholic Bishop,Robert Barron, considers the book almost prophetic on the topic of "values", such that today they accepted as being "projections of our feelings and subjective whims, and consequently, anyone who dares to speak of properly objective truth or objective moral value is engaging in an oppressive play of power."[11]Carl Trueman has argued that the collection of essays is strongly relevant to today as "the turmoil in our contemporary Western world is a function of the collapse of consensus concerning what it means to be human... a time marked by a crisis of anthropology."[12]
Commenting on the book's more political elements,Michael Ward argues that Lewis's essay is an early warning that democracies are vulnerable to "the dangers of subjectivism."[13] Ward writes that “Democracies can only be preserved...if they view ethical systems in an undemocratic light.” Expanding upon this, Samuel Gregg, speculates that Lewis's indirect critique of democracy may have unsettled readers immediately after its publication, given the political climate of World War II and the immediate threat of authoritarian dictatorships. In time, however, similar observations were shared and developed by both equivalent and later thinkers such asWilhelm Röpke, CardinalJean-Marie Lustiger and RabbiJonathan Sacks.[13]
Lewis's concept of "the Tao" has become understood as a shorthand ofNatural law.[14][15] As such, his essay is now regarded as both key to the revival of this idea of natural law, and a strong counterpoint to ethics ofKarl Barth, where morality depends onSpecial revelation.[16] Some legal minds have come to see Lewis's essay as bolstering the Calvinist understanding of Natural Law, as being transcendent in nature.[17]
Ross Douthat has written about the book's ideas many times inThe New York Times, listing it as one of the books he would assign to all college students, especially as they critique the threats of modern technology.[18][19][20] The philosopherPeter Kreeft shared this view, including it as one of six "books to read to save Western Civilization," alongsideLost in the Cosmos byWalker Percy,Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis,The Everlasting Man byG. K. Chesterton,Orthodoxy byG. K. Chesterton, andBrave New World byAldous Huxley.[21]
Passages fromThe Abolition of Man are included inWilliam Bennett's 1993 bookThe Book of Virtues.[22] However, as historian Paul E Michelson points out, many intellectuals have been prompted by Lewis's work to argue directly against him. This includesB. F. Skinner in his workBeyond Freedom and Dignity.[8] Skinner asserts that in hisBehaviorist school of psychology, contra Lewis, "Man is being abolished....What is being abolished is autonomous man—...the man defended by the literatures of freedom and dignity."[8]
A 2019 journal article,Science Fiction and the Abolition of Man argued that many science fiction characters have drawn on the idea of "men without chests", including the logicalVulcans ofStar Trek to the "emotionally stunted" replicants inBlade Runner.[25]
In 2022 artist Carson Grubaugh created a comic book adaptation, “Abolition of Man,” using illustrations generated by artificial intelligence. The text of Lewis' work serves as definitional prompts for the AI's images.[26]
Many ideas in Lewis' book have also appeared in music, including:
