Which C.S. Lewis book argues for objective values through the concept of the Tao?

The Abolition of Man argues for objective values through the concept of the Tao.

Published in 1943, The Abolition of Man began as a series of lectures at the University of Durham. Lewis criticized educational approaches that treated moral judgments as merely subjective emotional reactions. He argued that human societies have recognized a broad underlying order of moral principles.

Lewis called this shared moral tradition the Tao. His use of the term is broader than its meaning in any single East Asian philosophical or religious tradition: he used it as a name for the objective moral law acknowledged in different cultures. The book’s three chapters are titled “Men Without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man.”

The work is often discussed alongside Lewis’s Christian apologetics, but it is not structured as a conventional defense of Christianity. Its main concern is the relationship among education, moral judgment, natural law, and technological power. Its title refers to the possible elimination of human nature and moral agency through unchecked manipulation.