'The Kantian Imperative is a wonderful book. In striking prose, Paul Saurette illuminates the affective dimensions of Kant's image of morality as law and criticizes the practices of humiliation attached to it. At the same time, Saurette tells an absorbing tale of contemporary politics, one in which uncompromising claims to morality co-mingle and collide with affirmations of the dignity of human beings. Sharing with Kant an aversion to dogmatism, Saurette helps to break the tie that binds humility before the moral law to immoral practices of humiliation and terror.'
Jane Bennett, Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
'With this fresh and provocative new work, Paul Saurette presents a minority view of Kant that has few antecedents. His re-reading of Kant's moral philosophy as a species of ethical cultivation – deeply indebted to an ascetics of humiliation – is innovative, challenging, and very well executed. This is a major contribution to research.'
Ian Hunter, Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland
'The Kantian Imperative is a first-rate book: thoughtful, distinctive, provocative, engaging, eye-opening, even disturbing. It is one of those rare books where a reader can say, I wish I'd written it. With great insight and an elegant prose style, Paul Saurette has unearthed problematic dimensions of Kant’s thought that demand serious attention.'
Steven Johnston, Department of Government and International Affairs, University of South Florida
