In his book, The Abolition of Man, Lewis (1944) argued in the first chapter, Men Without Chests, that “Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the ‘spirited element’” (p.24). In another words, “The head rules the bely through the chest. The Chest – Magnanimity – Sentiment are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man” (p.24-25). Accordingly, Lewis suggests that the most essential thing about education is to inspire and train people to be equipped with a moral sentiment which will organize the emotion and rule the reason.
First, Lewis gave an example to indicate how educators unintentionally lead the students to believe that any statements in the reading are merely the predicament …show more content…
According to Augustine, virtue is a condition in which people can associate their love with the objects according to its proper value. Therefore, teachers should educate the students to be critical thinkers who can express their emotion or preference upon the reasoning. Likely, Aristotle and Plato support the idea that little one should be trained to “like or dislike what he ought…and to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful” (p.16). There were also similar concepts existing in the culture of Hindu and Orient. Basically, the essence of the concept is to praise the harmony between human and the nature, to honor the order and the beautiful, and to glorify the truth and reality. Consequently Lewis claimed that “it is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are” (p.18). In other words, Lewis suggested that teachers should follow the “Tao” and teach students to learn how to apply the moral principles to their choice or decision makings because the “approvals and disapprovals are recognitions of objective values or responses to an objective order” (p.19). And youth should be able to provide the rationale about why they like or dislike something based upon the moral standard they set …show more content…
He said, “the old [education] dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new [education] deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds – making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing” (p.23). As a result, Lewis opposed the situation in which educators simply transmit the knowledge without value the controversial discussion. He criticized such educator because they “regard all sentiments as equally non-rational…and decide to remove all sentiments from the pupil’s mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have noting do to with their intrinsic ‘justness’ or ‘ordinacy’” (p.21). On the contrary, Lewis believed that educators should involve the students in a process to discover the truth and provide reasoning which sounds appropriate to the nature of the problem. Also, educators should cultivate and develop the students to be thinkers who are not only knowledgeable but also wise and