Which C.S. Lewis book argues that modern society should recover objective moral values?

The Abolition of Man argues that modern society should recover objective moral values.

The Abolition of Man is a nonfiction work by C.S. Lewis, first published in 1943. It developed from three lectures delivered at the University of Durham in 1943. Lewis criticized an approach to education that, in his view, treated moral judgments as merely subjective emotional responses.

The book defends what Lewis calls the Tao, a term he uses for a broad tradition of basic moral principles found across cultures and religions. He argues that rejecting such objective values would weaken human judgment and eventually threaten the idea of human nature itself.

The title does not refer to the physical disappearance of humanity. It describes the possible reduction of people into beings controlled by technique, appetite, or power. The work is often read alongside Lewis’s Christian apologetics, but it also engages ethics, education, political thought, and the philosophy of science. Its short length and polemical style have made it one of Lewis’s most frequently discussed nonfiction books.