C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man first appeared in 1943. The book developed from three lectures that Lewis delivered at the University of Durham in February 1943 under the title “The Abolition of Man.”
Lewis argues that education should not treat moral judgments as mere expressions of subjective feeling. He defends the existence of an objective moral order, which he calls the Tao, and warns that attempts to reshape human nature through purely technological power could ultimately destroy what makes humanity human.
The work is a philosophical and educational critique rather than a novel. It is often discussed alongside Lewis’s other nonfiction books, including The Problem of Pain and Mere Christianity. The Abolition of Man is sometimes dated only by its lecture series, but the book itself was published in 1943, the same year in which the lectures were delivered.