Platoism in the Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

¶ … Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis argues that young people should not have their feelings severed. They should be able to coexist with their emotions. He believes that children need to have a foundation of sensitivity so they know right from wrong. The heart harbors sensitivity and the head is charge of justness. The head should overrule what is in the heart if necessary, but the feeling should still exist. Men are created without chests. They are told that they should have motivation and drive. They should achieve in business. They should be powerful rulers, yet they have no hearts.

We must ask several questions when considering Lewis' essay. What is the mind without the heart? What kind of rulers are we creating? What kind of men are we creating. It is true that min are focused on the after, the result of their labors instead of the process. They look at the monetary gain, professional acknowledgement, social pats on the backs. They do not heed the heart. The heart is left alone, cold and empty. Men are unfeeling. They should be rational with morals, love and sentiment. Books like the Green Book, Lewis argues, inadvertently give the message that it is unnecessary to express feelings. Feelings are somehow, wrong. The Green Book, somehow produces men without chests" (Lewis, 34). These are men with no morals. They have no values. They have no sense or obligation of right and wrong. Society demands and expects men to have consciousness and virtues. They are demanding emotions and feelings from men who are bred to have none. What's more, because their emotions have been castrated in their youth, they are deceiving. They parade around exclaiming that they are men of morals. They profess that they have sensitivity. Horribly, they attest that they have emotional sensibilities. How could they have emotions when they have no chests? "We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst" (Lewis, 35).

In the second part of the book, Lewis states that it is a fallacy to say that moral judgement has no place in rational thinking. The author argues that morals are at the root of judging whether one would die for one's country. It is not purely a rational decision. There are some intangible reasons why a person would decide to live or die. The will to survive and what Lewis calls the preservation of society are based in instinct, not in reason (Lewis, 44).

Tao, he argues, is at risk because there is no "instinctive urge to keep promises or to respect individual life" (Lewis, 44).

Instincts should not be the sole ruler of man. Instincts tell men that they must fulfill sexual needs without any sense of recourse. Taboos or morals were put in place to temper this instinct. Men with no morals who break modern taboos risk their health and put a financial burden on themselves even with modern contraceptives. It takes more than instinct to rule a society. For the most part, people do not have the desire to preserve society. They do not aim to make sure that the world as a whole is prosperous. They are more concerned with self, their children and their grandchildren. Parents are more concerned with their children than they are with future descendants.

No parents who were guided by this instinct would dream for a moment of setting up claims of their hypothetical descendants against those of the baby actually crowing and kicking in the room" (Lewis, 51). Men have a responsibility to their own kin and have a moral obligation towards their own relations. A father who would sacrifice for his son or daughter believes in morals (Lewis, 55). Lewis states that morality is called the Tao and that there will be "no progress in our perceptions of value." Although society and acceptability may change, there is a fundamental system of values that will never change.

Lewis argues that men must remain within the boundaries of the Tao to survive. In order for men to create new moral laws, he must understand and exist within current moral standards. No one can create morals without some sort of a foundation. There must be a foundation set so that morals may be manipulated. Men must understand morals before they have the right to make any changes. Men who live within the Tao have power over themselves. Those who live outside of the Tao live through an abstract law without boundaries or a foundation.