“The Abolition of Man”, C S Lewis once wrote to an American correspondent, “is almost my favorite among my books but in general has been almost totally ignored by the public”. It is the published version of three Riddell Memorial lectures delivered on the evenings of February 24, 25 and 26, 1943 at the University of Durham in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The Riddell Memorial lectures, founded in 1928 in memory of Sir John Riddell, were established to address subjects concerning the relation between religion and contemporary development of thought.
Walter Hooper, Lewis’ secretary during the final months of his life and the person responsible for bringing out many of Lewis’ essays, considered it to be the ‘most perfectly reasoned defence of the Natural Law (Natural Law is a theory in ethics and philosophy that says that human beings possess intrinsic values that govern our reasoning and behaviour) I have ever seen or believe to exist’. From cover to cover it is about 50 pages, with three main chapters of about 30 pages followed by an Appendix and Notes. Lewis objective was to substantiate the Natural Law and show the inherent weakness of its adversaries.
In his First Lecture he brings up and defines the primary contender to the Natural Law – the Subjectivism of Values – that all sorts of communications which contains a value judgement ( like true, good, noble, right) are not objectively true but a statement about the emotional state of the speaker. Against this Lewis places the traditional view accepted across all cultures.. Reality existed apart from us with its own unwritten laws . The Jews called this the Law, the Hindus the Rta, and the Chinese the Tao. –the Reality behind all value judgments.
In his Second Lecture Lewis highlights the theoretical difficulty behind the philosophy of Subjectivism of values. Lewis takes the case of self sacrifice – death for a good cause as the Experimentum Crucis (an experiment capable of decisively determining whether or not a particular theory is superior to all other theories) for this theory. Sometimes citizens are called to die for preserving the society. What reason will the Innovator use to convince a young man that society is worth preserving? He cannot say it is good, noble or even necessary as all these terms are borrowed from the Natural Law. Instinct? But how will one choose between contradicting instincts like self preservation and preservation of the society? And why should we obey our instincts?
In the Third Lecture, Lewis explores the consequence of following Subjectivism. We abstract, he goes on to state, – i.e. to understand a thing analytically, and then dominate and use it for our own convenience, we reduce it to the level of nature, in the sense that we suspend our own judgments of value about it, ignore its final cause and treat it in terms of quantity. But in the process we forget that the object, so treated, is an artificial abstraction, that something of its reality is lost. He points out that man’s victory over nature, which reaches by inordinate application of abstraction, will mean that the whole human race will be subjected to some individual men, who in turn are subject to that which in turn is natural – purely irrational – in them. Man’s conquest of nature turns out to be nature’s conquest of man. The Abolition of Man!!
Chapter 1. Men without chests
Lewis used the ideas expressed in a recently published book to launch his defence of the Natural Law. The book referred to was The Content of Language by Alex King and Mater Kelley, published in 1940. So as not to unnecessarily embarrass the authors he refers to the authors as Gaius and Titius and the book as the Green Book.
The authors quotes the instance of a man making a comment of a waterfall… saying that it is sublime – i.e it is of great excellence and beauty. Gaius and Titius asserts that “ We appear to say something important about something, but actually we are only saying something about our own feelings” This means that ordinary human feelings about the past or animals or waterfalls or practically anything, are contrary to reason and hence ought to be eradicated.
Until modern times, Lewis points out, all teachers, and even most men, believed the Universe to be such that, certain emotional actions on our part could be in agreement or in disagreement with it. They believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt. So when the man called the waterfall sublime, he was not intending simply to describe his own emotions about it, he was claiming that the object (the waterfall) was the one which merited those emotions. This is true not just in the case of aesthetics, but in morality also.
The Ancients called this underlying objective reality by many names… The Jews called it the Law, The Chinese called it the Tao, the reality beyond all predicates…The early Hindus called it the Rta – that great ritual or pattern of nature and supernature which is revealed alike in the cosmic order as well as in the moral value. The conduct in men can be called good only if it conformity to the Rta.
If our approvals and disapprovals are recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, then our emotions can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be liked) or out of harmony (when we perceive that liking is due but cannot feel it). No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions and sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform. The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it. Aristotle considered the Head as the seat of the Reason, the Chest or the Heart as the seat of Emotions and the Belly as the seat of Desire.
The operation of the Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. And all the time we clamour for those qualities that we are rendering impossible. We ask for drive, dynamism, self sacrifice, creativity. We remove the organ but demand the function. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
Chapter 2. The Way
Lewis here addresses the theoretical difficulties in the philosophy of Subjectivism. The very fact that Gaius and Titius have written a book means that they want to put forward some new ideal which is ‘good’ or ‘necessary’ or ‘progressive’ or ‘efficient’. They are apparently trying to arrive at ‘real’ or ‘basic’ values which are not tainted by emotion , religious sanction and inherited taboos.
He takes the example of a man asked to die for his country. The Tao taught that it was a sweet and seemly thing to die for one’s country. The Innovator has debunked all this but still he need to give the youngsters a good reason to take up jobs which are risky – Being in the police force or the fireforce or the army – or being a health worker or ambulance driver during a pandemic. What reason can be there to substantiate this? “Good for the community” – Why should I be the one to take the risk? – A statement like “This will preserve society’ cannot lead to ‘do this’. Lewis states that the Innovator ‘is trying to get a conclusion in the imperative mood out of premises in the indicative mood’. We can do that only if we accept that judgement like Society ought to be preserved are not mere sentiments but rationality itself.
It can be argued that such sentiments have their roots in Instinct. Then are we saying that we should obey our Instinct? That we cannot do otherwise? If that is the case, then there is no need to exhort. Or is it that Instinct ought to be obeyed? Why? And how do we choose between the instinct to do good for others and the instinct to preserve ourselves? The conclusion is that Instincts are to be evaluated on a value system independent of that.
The Tao substantiates self sacrifice.. ‘ Do as you would be done by’ says Jesus. ‘All within the four seas are his brothers’ says Confucius…’Humanity is to be preserved’ says Locke…Call it Natural Law or Traditional Morality or First Principles or Practical Reason… But this is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun or a new sky to move it in.
But what if we proceed in this manner? We have conquered Nature – bit by bit. ‘Why must our conquest of Nature stop short, in stupid reverence, before this final and toughest bit of ‘nature’ which has hitherto been called the conscience of man?’ Let us step aside Tao and all that and start doing what we like – let us decide for ourselves what man is to be and make man like that. The third lecture, explores this option
Chapter 3. The Abolition of Man
In reality, man’s conquest of nature, translates as a power possessed by some men which they may or may not allow other men to profit by.. Vaccines, now, are an example. No doubt the picture could be modified by public ownership of raw material and factories and public control of scientific research. But the policies will again be decided by men. In other words, man’s conquest of nature, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions of men.(North Korea is an example of what it can look like… Some democracies are no different)
In earlier ages, the wild plan for the Innovators (that is what the followers of Subjectivism claim what they are) was thwarted by the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses and (above all) real children. But the new age planners would be armed with the powers of an omnipotent state and an irresistible scientific technique. Furthermore, unlike the earlier time, the Innovators, are not bound by any framework. Values are mere natural phenomena. Judgements of values are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning.
But why should we imagine that these Innovators are all bad men? But surely, good and bad depends on value judgement, which they have rejected it all together. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into a void. Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all.. they are artefacts. Man’s final conquest has proved to be the Abolition of Man! All motivations fail..except one.. the felt emotional weight of a given moment. Those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse. In man’s victory over nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, who in turn are subject to that which in turn is natural – purely irrational – in them. Man’s conquest of nature turns out to be nature’s conquest of man.
What is nature? She seems to be the world of quantity as against the world of quality. When we understand a thing analytically and then dominate and use it for our own convenience, we reduce it to the level of nature, in the sense that we suspend our own judgements of value about it, ignore its final cause and treat it in terms of quantity. Great minds know very well that the object, so treated, in an artificial abstraction, that something of its reality is lost.
It is in man’s power to treat himself as a ‘mere’ natural object and his own judgements of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. This will finally result him becoming raw material manipulated, not by himself, but by mere appetite, of the people in power. This is like the sorcerer’s bargain – Give up your soul, get power in return. But then, once our souls are given up, the power thus conferred belong not to us.
Earlier the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality and the solution had been knowledge, self discipline and virtue. But now, for applied science, the problem is how to subdue reality to the wisdom of men… the solution is a technique.
Modern imagination imagines scientific progress as a linear progression where every step, to all eternity, is the same kind of step as the one before. It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him to warm his house with no fuel at all. But there are progressions where the last step is not commensurable with the others. You cannot go on explaining away forever.. you will find that you have explained explanation away.
But is there a restoration possible? To imagine a new natural philosophy, continuously conscious that the natural object produced by analysis and abstraction, is not reality, but only a view and always correcting the abstraction? Their followers will not explain away things, when asked to explain, and will not be free with words only and merely. It would conquer Nature without being at the same time conquered by her and buy knowledge at a lower cost than that of life.
Sunday, 6 June 2021
My two bits 