This is the third and last podcast on The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. The first podcasts covered whether there is anything like real external values or whether our values are based om only our subjective feelings. The second podcast review Jack’s answer that there is a universal Moral Law recognized by most people at most times in history, and his evidence for that claim. This part of the book (and this podcast) now looks to the future. It imagines what might happen if we proceed down the path of making morality and ethics entirely subjective in a world where the power of the state seems to be increasing every day. In addition, our ability to manipulate people via education and propaganda is also growing, leading to a bleak future. Jack envisions a day when a select few social planners decide to give their students the conscience or moral guide set by the planners. In this new day the vast majority of people will be manufactured, in an essential sense, and could be called post-human. They of course are not free – indeed the question has almost no meaning for them, for they respond as they have been condition. Lewis points out that even the planners are not really free, for although they have abandoned the Moral Law and conscience, they are in reality slaves to their emotional impulses.
However, Lewis closes this book with a ray of hope. He longs for a society where science not only measures the quality of things but also understands the quality or value of the things they study.
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