There remains the option of denying that morality has the universal, all-inclusive nature modern philosophers think it has. Alasdair MacIntyre, for example, argues that morality is rooted in the life of a specific real community — a village, a city, a nation, with its idiosyncratic customs and history — and that, therefore, adherence to morality requires loyalty to such a community. Patriotism, on this view, is essential for living a morally good life. MacIntyre’s argument (in his Lindley Lecture, “Is Patriotism a Virtue?”) has provided the most powerful contemporary defense of a full-blooded patriotism.

Gutting instead believes that America "is still trying to live out a modern morality that seeks the freedom of everyone." Larison rails against such "universalist goals."