Which 1943 C.S. Lewis book examines moral law, education, and the danger of rejecting objective values?

The Abolition of Man examines moral law, education, and the danger of rejecting objective values.

Published in 1943, The Abolition of Man developed from three lectures Lewis delivered at the University of Durham in February 1943. The book responds to a contemporary English textbook and argues that moral education cannot be reduced to subjective feelings or mere conditioning.

Lewis uses the term Tao for the broad tradition of objective moral principles shared across cultures. He warns that attempts to control nature through technological power can ultimately become attempts by some humans to control other humans.

The work is not a novel and does not directly retell a biblical story. It is a compact philosophical and educational argument, which is why readers sometimes confuse it with Lewis’s more explicitly apologetic books, such as Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain.