The problem munitarianism, claims Bradley C. S. Watson, is that it views religion as an instrumental good and individual virtue as destructive:

es to sight as a movement that sees, far more clearly than liberalism, that the private sphere and private goods are rooted in, and in turn have an effect on, public goods. President Clinton, as a “new” Democrat, has effectively enlisted the intellectual backing of munitarian theorists in his efforts to distance himself and his party from the more extravagantly individualist claims of the old left. munitarianism is but a liberal wolf munal clothing. This is a central claim of Bruce Frohnen, a political scientist who is currently a speechwriter for U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham. InThe New Communitarians and the Crisis of Modern Liberalism, Frohnen argues that the munitarians eschew the authority of what they see as oppressive tradition, natural law, or traditional religion. For these, they seek to substitute a desiccated, politically nationalizing civil munal loyalty to which will help ensure that their particular vision of the es to pass.

Although the precise contours and extent of civil religion are not always fleshed out (by Frohnen, or by munitarians themselves), it is clear that traditional religion is an instrumental good only, useful to the extent it teaches the intertwined liberal social goods of tolerance, equality, authenticity, and participation munity life. Communitarian virtues are not the Aristotelian ones-courage, moderation, prudence, justice, and so forth-but liberal ones. Indeed, in Frohnen’s interpretation of Bellah, the promotion of individual virtue is at once atomizing and hegemonic, destructive therefore of both munity and authenticity.

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