The Abolition of Man

Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The Abolition of Man

The Abolition of Man is a 1943 book by C. S. Lewis. It is subtitled "Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools," but it actually uses that as a starting point for a defense of objective value and natural law, and a warning of the consequences of doing away with or "debunking" those things. It also contains heavy criticism of pursuing science in the wrong way, i.e. using it to debunk values, or defining it to exclude such values. By this criticism Lewis claims to defend the value of science itself as something worth pursuing.

Lewis starts with an observation that certain books purporting to teach English to schoolchildren have an implicit philosophy 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. He says that such a subjective view of values is faulty, and, on the contrary, certain objects and actions merit positive or negative reactions: that a waterfall can actually be objectively praiseworthy, and that one's actions can be objectively good or evil.

He cites ancient thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle and Augustine, who believed that the purpose of education was to train children in the "ordinate affections," that is, to like and dislike what they ought; to love the good and hate the bad. He says that although these values are universal, they are not natural (or at least not inevitable) in children, and must be inculcated through education. Those who lack them lack the specifically human element, the trunk that unites intellectual man with visceral (animal) man, and 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 has been shared, with minor differences, by every culture; he calls this the Tao (following a Confucian rather than a Taoist usage of that term). (Although Lewis saw natural law as supernatural in origin, as evidenced by his use of it as a proof of theism in Mere Christianity, his argument in this book does not rest on theism.) Without the Tao, no value judgements 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 the Tao and using it as grounds to debunk the others.

The final chapter describes the ultimate consequences of this debunking: a distant future in which the values and morals of the majority are controlled by a small group who rule by a perfect understanding of psychology, 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. The controllers will no longer be recognizably human, the controlled will be robot-like, and the Abolition of Man will have been completed.

A fictional treatment of this idea forms one thread of Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength.

An appendix lists a number of basic values that Lewis saw as parts of the Tao, along with statements of them from different cultures.

In 2003, the Post-Hardcore band Thrice dedicated a song to the book on their album "The Artist In The Ambulance".

Abolition of Man Outline

Men Without Chests

I. A book C.S. Lewis calls The Green Book in The Abolition of Man describes the mistaken view that feelings that instigate a judgment of quality are the feelings of that quality (3).
*A. The correct view states that feelings that produce a quality judgment are usually the opposite of the quality attributed to something (3).
*B. If the mistaken view were applied to all situations, obvious absurdities would arise (3).
II. The unlearned that reads The Green Book will believe two things (4).
*A. All statements containing a predicate of value state the emotions of the speaker (4).
*B. All statements containing a predicate of value are unimportant (4).
III. It is debatable whether the authors intended for this view to extend outside their book (4).
*A. The Green Book slips this assumption into students’ minds without the students’ knowledge (5).
*B. This assumption will cause students to take sides on a controversy that they never even knew was an issue (5).
IV. The Green Book should not only spurn the bad writing but also teach what is good writing (7).
*A. The student will learn nothing about literature if this step is not taken (8).
*B. The student will become immune to bad writing if this step is taken (9).
V. Other writers make the same mistake as The Green Book in debunking writing, by not comparing it to good writing and causing students to receive the wrong views (10).
VI. Some writers might be trying to eradicate common thinking and set up new moral standards (12).
VII. It is extremely probable that the writers of The Green Book did not plan to publicize their philosophy, but did so on accident (12).
*A. Literary criticism is harder than merely pointing out bad literature (13).
*B. The authors of The Green Book misunderstood the type of book they needed to write (13).
**1. The correct defense against fictitious opinions is to teach moral sentiments (14).
**2. When students are not taught the correct defense, they are easy prey to the propagandist (14).
*C. The authors are unable to create new standards and are only successful in debunking ideas (14).
VIII. According to Aristotle, the purpose of education is to teach the student what is right and wrong (16).
IX. All cultures have common moral standards, and C.S. Lewis refers to those as “the Tao” (17-18).
*A. The Tao asserts that certain standards and beliefs are true, and that many beliefs are false, and it also explains man’s nature (18).
*B. The heart should not take the head’s place, but should obey the head (19).
X. To give a judgment of emotion is to refer to something beyond the emotion – the Tao (20).
*A. The Green Book avoids addressing the Tao, which lies behind the judgments on its pages (20).
*B. Such statements as are made in The Green Book are neither reasonable nor unreasonable, for they are not judged by any standard (20).
XI. The educational problems differ, whether one is inside or outside the Tao (21).
*A. If one is within the Tao, he is to teach what are the correct responses, who made those responses, and what is man’s nature (21).
*B. If one is outside the Tao, he must understand that all sentiments and thoughts are equally irrational and teach the student either to have no sentiments, or to encourage the student to act on, or even create certain sentiments for no apparent reason (21-22).
XII. Without trained emotions, man’s intellect is without power against his natural desires (24).
*A. The Chest (emotions) is what mediates between the Head (intellect) and the Stomach (natural desires) (25).
*B. The Green Book and other works like it are responsible for removing the moral law and emotions and creating men without chests (25).
**1. Mankind clamors for the qualities that it actively destroys (26).
**2. The farther men stray from the moral law, the more they expect virtue (26).

The Way

I. The Green Book means destruction for any society that accepts it (27).
*A. The Green Book does not refute subjective values and theories (27).
*B. The writing of The Green Book shows that the authors themselves had subjective views to prove (27).
*C. If the authors have no point to prove in The Green Book, then it has no purpose (28).
*D. As with many other books, The Green Book is skeptical about others’ values but not nearly skeptical enough about its own (29).
II. The innovators of thought and morals attempt to draw conclusions in the imperative out of premises in the indicative, but they fail because it is impossible (32).
*A. Man must accept that judgments are not sentiments but rationality, or else give up all thoughts of rational values (32).
*B. The innovators do not accept that there are practical principles known by all men, because that is what they are trying to debunk (32).
*C. The innovators rely upon ethics based on instinct and, it seems, have no conflicts in their reasoning (32-33).
III. When examining instinct, it appears that the innovators, rather than asserting that men have to obey instinct or will be pleased to do so, are saying that men ought to obey instinct (35).
*A. Although impossible, man must assume that there is a higher instinct, which tells one whether, or not, to obey the lower instinct; one must further assume that the chain of higher and lower instincts continues (35).
*B. Under instinct, there is no logical jump from an impulse to the conclusion, as to whether one should obey it (35).
*C. Instincts contradict and battle each other, and there is no rule of precedence by which to judge the instincts (36).
*D. Either the Tao must judge instincts, or the intensity in which one feels an instinct must judge that instinct (37).
IV. Those who accept the Tao may feel obliged to obey some moral standard; however, those who treat instinct as the source of moral standards cannot feel compelled to either obey or to disobey those standards (38).
V. The innovators of thoughts and morals can find no system of values or standards in any operation with factual propositions or any appeal to instinct (39).
VI. The only practical principles supporting the innovator’s case come from the Tao (39-40).
*A. One cannot accept the innovator’s principles as conclusions, only as premises (40).
*B. All values are sentimental, and therefore merely subjective (40).
*C. If all values are not sentimental, then they could be so rational as to not even need evidence, but that causes one to accept other ideas without evidence (40).
VII. All values that innovators use to replace the Tao are, in fact, pieces from the Tao (41).
*A. Innovators have no authority to merely select the parts of the Tao they like (41).
*B. If the innovators reject certain values from the Tao but hold the others to be valid, then the rejected values are equally valid (41).
VIII. The Tao, or moral law, is the sole source of all value judgments (43).
*A. If one rejects the Tao, he rejects all values (43).
*B. There will never be new values in this world (43).
*C. All new ideologies are only bits and pieces of the Tao, strung together (44).
*D. Some criticism and development of values from within the Tao is good for moral advance (45).
IX. Only those within the Tao, who understand it, can modify it to benefit man’s spirit and cause spiritual growth (47).
*A. The outsider cannot change the Tao (47).
*B. All attempts from outsiders to change the Tao end up in contradiction (47).
*C. The only authority to modify the Tao comes from within the Tao (47).
X. To have an open mind in questions that are not ultimate is useful, but if one has an open mind in questions that are ultimate, he is an idiot (48).
*A. If one has an open mind to the ultimate, he must not speak or write on that view (48).
*B. There is nothing outside the Tao, by which to judge the Tao (48).
*C. One must never ask the Tao to justify itself, and if he does, he will slowly destroy the Tao (49).
XI. Some ask why man should stop short of conquering the last bit of nature, the Tao (50).
*A. One can very likely get on well without any values (51).
*B. Man should completely conquer nature and master the Tao also (51).
*C. Those who accept this position cannot be accused of self-contradiction (51).

The Abolition of Man

I. Man feels that he has conquered and is conquering nature (53).
II. What man considers as power over nature is really the power possessed by certain men over nature, which may or may not benefit other men (54).
*A. A few men control flight and, thus, control a certain aspect of other men’s lives (54-55).
*B. Man’s “control” over nature is really the control of certain men over the rest of mankind, using nature as the instrument (55).
*C. No matter what the economic situations are in this world, the power over nature will always be the power of one man, group, or nation over another man, group, or nation (56).
III. The farther man advances toward controlling nature, the less power future generations will have over their lives and futures (58).
*A. Every power won by man over nature is another step towards fully controlling men (58).
*B. Every advance weakens man as well as strengthens him (58).
IV. Human nature will be the last piece of nature to be controlled, and when it is controlled, the battle between man and nature for power will be finished (59).
V. When man can make himself who he pleases, two things will happen (59).
*A. Mankind’s power will increase (59).
*B. Education will produce the Tao rather than the Tao producing education (61).
VI. The Conditioners, those who create artificial values for mankind, will have to create morals and decide what humanity will mean, without basing it on a moral law (62-63).
*A. The Conditioners will not be true men, because they no longer live under a moral law (64).
*B. The Conditioners’ subjects will not be men, but will be artifacts (64).
VII. Personal whims will motivate the Conditioners (65).
*A. The Conditioners cannot become corrupt because there is no Tao that gives morals (65).
*B. The Conditioners will not be able to choose between one whim and the other, for the Tao is the only thing by which to judge the worthiness of whims (66).
*C. Benevolence, most likely, will not appear very often without the Tao (66).
VIII. The Conditioners will most likely hate the conditioned (66).
*A. Although their lives are meaningless, the conditioned will feel that they have a purpose and will be happy (66).
*B. The Conditioners will be jealous of their patients’ naiveté (66).
IX. When man finally conquers nature, nature will truly conquer man (68).
*A. The Conditioners will only be benevolent if it came by chance, on a whim (67).
*B. In this situation, chance refers to nature (e.g., one being happy because the coffee was not too hot) (67).
*C. The Conditioner’s only option is to obey impulse, which is nature (67).
X. As man “conquers” nature, nature’s domain grows larger (71).
*A. The stars were gods until man learned they were nature (71).
*B. The soul was spiritual until man psychoanalyzed it (71).
*C. Once man tears down the Tao, he will merely be a part of nature (71).
XI. Man tries to both tear down the Tao and to keep it; however, this is impossible, for man can only be one of two things (73).
*A. Man might be a rational spirit, obliged to obey the Tao (73).
*B. Man might be mere nature, to be shaped in whatever way that happens to come by chance (73).
XII. Man may have purchased science at too high a price (78).
*A. Mankind is moving towards a society with the Conditioners and the patients; however, few have noticed this movement (73-74).
*B. Men will only be truly human as long as they live under the Tao (75).
XIII. One cannot continually see through things because to see through all things is to see nothing (81).
*A. The purpose of looking through something is to see the primary principle behind it (81).
*B. If one continually looks through principles, he will eventually lose sight of the foundational principle (81).

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.