The Kantian Imperative: Humiliation, Common Sense, Politics (Heritage) - Softcover

Saurette, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802048803 ISBN 13: 9780802048806

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2005

Synopsis

Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy is almost universally understood as the attempt to analyse and defend a morality based on individual autonomy. In The Kantian Imperative, Paul Saurette challenges this interpretation by arguing that Kant's 'imperative' is actually based on a problematic appeal to 'common sense' and that it is premised on, and seeks to further cultivate and intensify, the feeling of humiliation in every moral subject.

Discerning the influence of this model on a wide variety of historical and contemporary political thought and philosophy and critical of its implications, Saurette explores its impact on the work of two seminal and contemporary thinkers in particular: Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas. Saurette also shows that an analysis of the Kantian imperative allows a better understanding of current political problems such as the U.S. torture scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and broader post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy. The Kantian Imperative thus demonstrates that philosophy and political theory are as relevant to contemporary events as at any other time in history.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Saurette is a professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Review

'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)

'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)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0802048803
• ISBN 13: 9780802048806
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320