We will not have time to discuss the whole of Naticchia and Buchanan, so the page assignments above trim off part of their exchange. More precisely the assignments are as follows:
Naticchia: intro., §§I-II, and, from §III, the 1st 7 ¶¶ (through “…keeping our fingers crossed.”) and the last 3 ¶¶ (from “Earlier I said …”)
Buchanan: §§I-III, and, from §IV, the 1st 5 ¶¶ (through “… the pragmatic theory cannot.”)
Chris Naticchia’s paper offers a critique of an earlier paper by Allen Buchanan, and the paper by Buchanan will discuss replies to this critique. Since Buchanan’s earlier paper appeared in the same journal, it is also available on JSTOR; but Naticchia’s account of Buchanan’s paper is detailed enough that his critique is self-contained.
The issue in dispute between the two is the grounds on which states should be recognized, so this is a question regarding the moral justification of an aspect of international law. Part of the question is what the principle of recognition should be, but another part is the sort of justification that should be given to such principles. The latter side of the dispute between Buchanan and Naticchia is analogous to the disputes between deontological and consequentialist approaches that you’ve seen in a number of issues in municipal law.
• Naticchia’s introduction and first section present the issue and Buchanan’s view. Buchanan’s suggested criteria for recognition use considerations of justice that he refers to as “minimal justice.” He has arguments both for employing minimal criteria and for employing considerations of justice at all, and Naticchia outlines these arguments in that order.
• Section II presents three objections to Buchanan and, along the way, fills out Naticchia’s alternative views regarding criteria of recognition (which were sketched briefly in the introduction). The first identifies “a kind of inconsistency” (p. 246) in Buchanan’s approach. You should ask yourself not only whether Buchanan’s approach has the consequences Naticchia claims but also whether such consequences represent a serious problem. The other two objections concern the level set for “minimal” justice. Since Naticchia argues that this must be set on pragmatic grounds if Buchanan’s view is to work, this discussion provides some sense of the sort of considerations that Naticchia thinks should be used to settle questions of recognition directly. However, the discussion is still fairly abstract and you should think about how the points made might be illustrated with more concrete examples.
• Naticchia’s last section looks at possible objections to his views. I have assigned only the beginning of this discussion (pp. 250-252), where he argues that the two approaches may have the same consequences in practice and that his does not lead to complicity in injustice, and the very end, where he develops a point he has also made earlier, that his approach has the advantage of “candor.”
Although Buchanan doesn’t really challenge Naticchia’s presentation of his views, he does provide more detail as he replies to Naticchia’s objections; and, of course, he presents the arguments for his side more fully than an opponent could be expected to.
• The key material in the introductory section I is his outline of what he takes to be Naticchia’s 4 key arguments. You’ve read something of all of these arguments though not always in the order in which Buchanan lists them. The remainder of the paper addresses these arguments one by one, we will consider only his replies to the first three.
• The first issue on Buchanan’s list—whether his approach lacks “candor” or muddies the distinction between justice and criteria of recognition—is one of the simplest but it may be the most important. As you read Buchanan’s response in §II think not only whether he meets concerns but also whether someone on the other side of him from Naticchia would have reason to say that he still makes too much use of pragmatic considerations.
• It is section III that deals most directly with the difference between his view and Naticchia’s that is presented in his title. The difference is analogous to the difference between the sort of “rule-utilitarianism” discussed by Rawls and an “act-utilitarianism” that assesses the utility of acts directly. The reason that Buchanan speaks of “act-consequentialism” here is that the consequences of acts are evaluated not in terms of happiness but instead in terms of the prevalence of peace and justice.
• In section IV, Buchanan considers the main arguments offered in Naticchia’s final section. We will discuss only the beginning, where he comments further on the differences between their views and, in particular, on Nattichia’s claim that their consequences might be the same in practice.