Humanity In C. S. Lewis The Abolition Of Man

Humanity is in danger of dying. According to C.S. Lewis, this humanity is not simply the existence as a biological species, but is instead founded upon the capacity to understand the objective values of the world. So, as the traditional values of the world are shunned, as they die, humanity will die as well. In Lewis’s book, The Abolition of Man, the permeation of moral relativism into the minds of the youth is the threat to humanity. In order to defend the importance of the doctrine of objective value, or the Tao, Lewis utilizes appeals to the reader’s sentiments and reason to break apart the credibility and validity of all views that attempt to oppose the Tao.
Lewis begins by attacking Gaius and Titius, the authors of The Green Book, a new
The first hole punched in The Green Book is in connection with one of its principal examples. Gaius and Titius claim that a man who calls a waterfall sublime isn’t actually identifying a state of beauty in the object, but merely has sublime feelings. Lewis counters that the feelings which prompt someone to call something sublime are “not in fact sublime feelings, but feelings of veneration” and of being humbled before such a great sight (3). Sublimity is actually an objective value of the waterfall, and one’s feelings about it can’t change that. He also highlights the inadequacy of their claim by including the example of calling someone contemptible, as that would not mean that one considers their own feelings contemptible. Through his logic and examples, Lewis is able to reveal how lacking moral relativism is in its own logic, as it’s not hard to come up with ways to debunk it. By dismantling the doctrine of subjective value, Lewis is defending the validity of objective
He calls these defectors “the Innovators.” Using the culturally relevant example of death for a good cause, he begins with utilitarianism. Utilitarians might claim that dying for one’s community has positive value because it is useful for the preservation of the community. But, Lewis notes that the idea that “this will preserve society” cannot lead one to actually sacrifice himself without the underlying value that the “society ought to be preserved” (32). Even attempts to claim that preserving society is a biological instinct are not sufficient to bridge the gap between the idea and the action of sacrificing oneself for the good of the community. Lewis poses the issue that if instinct were to be solely credited, then what explains why one would obey that instinct? And what explains which instincts should be followed or suppressed? Is there a higher instinct that tells humans they should obey their instinct? That claim dissolves into a never-ending ladder of instincts. So, neither utilitarianism nor instincts can explain why some things are considered intrinsically good. Lewis reinforces that there must be some objective value system that decides which instincts ought to be followed and which shouldn’t for the good of society. Lewis sums up this branch of his argument by stating “The innovator attacks traditional values (the