Which C.S. Lewis book argues that traditional moral values are being weakened by modern education?

The Abolition of Man argues that traditional moral values are being weakened by modern education.

C.S. Lewis published The Abolition of Man in 1943 after delivering three lectures at the University of Durham. The book criticizes an approach to education that, in Lewis’s view, treats moral judgments as merely subjective emotional reactions rather than responses to objective values.

Lewis develops this argument through the idea of the Tao, his term for a cross-cultural set of basic moral principles. He warns that rejecting such principles could produce people whose judgments are shaped entirely by appetite, power, or social engineering. The book is philosophical rather than fictional and is much shorter than many modern academic studies.

The title does not mean that Lewis was calling for the physical destruction of humanity. It refers to the possible loss of human agency and moral formation if people become products of technological control. That distinction is central to understanding the book’s argument.