Introduction
This article analyzes C.S. Lewis’s concept of the "Chest" as the foundation of moral integrity for both the individual and society. The Chest, understood as the harmonious connection between reason and emotion, is a prerequisite for a community built on trust. Modern culture, by focusing on pure rationality, leads to the atrophy of this organ, resulting in an ethical crisis and vulnerability to manipulation. You will learn why, without the Tao—the universal matrix of values—ethics becomes impossible, and man becomes merely an object of technological processing.
Men Without Chests and the Universal Tao
In the spiritual anatomy of man, the head represents reason, and the belly represents appetites. Between them lies the chest—the realm of stable sentiments and magnanimity. It is this "middle module" that allows reason to govern instinct. Lewis warns that we are producing men without chests by severing the intellect from trained affects. Without this link, reason remains powerless, and appetite becomes chaotic.
The foundation of morality is the Tao: an objective order of values rooted in reality. This is not a local doctrine, but the common core of various cultures. We find it in the Egyptian principle of Maat, Roman justice, or Confucian reciprocity. The Catalogue of the Tao includes universal norms: truthfulness, honor for parents, care for the weak, and justice. The Tao is the condition for the possibility of ethics; if nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proven.
The Innovator’s Fallacy and the Trap of Subjectivism
The modern "Innovator" attempts to reject the Tao, viewing values as subjective feelings. This leads to an aporia: one cannot logically derive an "ought" from an "is." Attempting to reduce values to biology or utility paralyzes ethics, because the very postulate of "saving society" already requires accepting an objective value that the Innovator’s system cannot justify. This is parasitizing the very Tao it denies.
Moral subjectivism paves the way for tyranny. When values cease to be objective, the only remaining criteria are naked will and power. A society without duty ceases to be a community and becomes a proving ground for social engineers. True reform must take place within the Tao by expanding its principles. A destructive rebellion against the foundations ends in the loss of the ability to distinguish decency from the mere satisfaction of needs.
The Conquest of Nature and the New Education
The paradox of the conquest of nature is that at the moment of final triumph, man himself becomes the object of manipulation. Technological power over emotions and reproduction allows "designers of souls" to shape humanity according to their whims, subject to no higher norm. At this point, nature returns as sovereign, ruling people through their own untamed appetites. This is the abolition of man as a free and moral being.
The remedy is an education that, instead of "cutting down jungles" (cynically debunking values), begins to irrigate deserts of higher sentiments. Key is magnanimity—the disposition to recognize that certain things are worthy of respect in themselves. Training the ordo amoris (the order of love) aims to make the student love what is lovable. Only a person with a well-formed chest can resist tyranny and maintain dignity in the face of pressure.
Summary
Will we manage to recover the Chest before cynicism completely takes over our hearts? The amputation of the moral organ leaves us defenseless against the technology of power. If nothing is inherently binding, no duties exist, and freedom becomes merely the aimless twitching of limbs after the nerve has been severed. The Tao is not a relic of the past, but the only blueprint for a bridge across the abyss of modern nihilism. We must acknowledge the existence of objective values so that power does not become tyranny and obedience does not become slavery.
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