Discuss is it possible that, if international actors do in fact adhere to norms because they understand the resulting “behavior to be good, desirable, and appropriate” that they are nonetheless behaving in accordance with good old fashioned rational-choice utility maximization?

Beginning on page 909 of the Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) reading, they discuss the conflicts and potential linkages between the study of norms and, broadly and somewhat roughly speaking, rational-choice theory (they use the world “rationality”), which has been the basis of most political science thought over the last 50 or so years. They identify four issues that have created the most conflict between “norms scholars” and rational-choice scholars: materialism, utilitarianism, choice, and persuasion.I find their observations and arguments about utility maximization and choice to be the particularly interesting and convincing. First, by utility maximization, they simply mean a circumstance in which an actor pursues the course of action that they determine to be most likely to get them the most of what they want, i.e. rational behavior; here, the implicit, albeit somewhat straw-man, rational-choice argument is that actors will only construct and adhere to norms if it helps them to “get what they want.” I think that it’s pretty easy to view this logic through a realist or liberal lens: actors (i.e. states) will construct norms and adhere to norms out of self interest if doing so is the most efficient way to get the most of what they want. On the other hand, a constructivist perspective might suggest that states don’t necessarily create and adhere to “logics of appropriateness” out of material conceptions of self-interested utility maximization, but, rather, that “actors internalize roles and rules as scripts to which they conform, not for instrumental reasons–to get what they want–but because they understand the behavior to be good, desirable, and appropriate. Habit, duty, sense of obligation and responsibility, as well as principled belief may all be powerful motivators for people and underpin significant episodes of world politics” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 912). ***This raises the first set of issues that we’ll discuss. First, do you think that international actors (here, primarily states) construct and adhere to norms for entirely instrumental reasons, i.e. to get what they want? Second, is it possible that, if international actors do in fact adhere to norms because they understand the resulting “behavior to be good, desirable, and appropriate” that they are nonetheless behaving in accordance with good old fashioned rational-choice utility maximization? Put another way, is it possible that states sometimes derive utility from behaving in “good” and “appropriate” ways as the end themselves, as opposed to using that behavior as a means to some other utility-maximizing end, say, adhering to a norm that a great power created in order to curry favor from that power? Most importantly, why or why not? Furthermore, on page 913. The authors cite research that argues that “When norms become internalized in actors, actors are no longer choosing to conform to them in any meaningful way…Yet, as we survey the norms research that emphasizes appropriateness logic in IR, very little of it looks deterministic. Indeed, most [of this research] emphasizes the highly contingent and contested nature of normative change and normative influence” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 913-914). ***This raises the second set of issues that we’ll discuss. First, do you think that norms do in fact become internalized, meaning that they develop a taken-for-granted character and are no longer subject to debate? If not, how do we explain norms like slavery, or perhaps (though I’m on the fence as to whether this norm is fully internalized) the norm against using chemical weapons against one’s own citizens; if you do think that norms become internalized, do you think that these norms become deterministic, meaning that actors don’t exercise any decision-making behavior when adhering to them, i.e. that adherence is a fait accompli? These are really difficult, highly abstract questions, but they also lend themselves very well to carefully ordered, logical thinking, which is one of the most important skills that studying the liberal arts helps us to develop. Given that, I’m especially interested in hearing what you all have to say about this! 100 words minimum