Drawing upon my critical appropriation of Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the rationality of traditions, I undertake to explain and demonstrate how the competing conceptual frameworks of distinct traditions of educational inquiry and practice can be assessed through dialectical argument. To illustrate the "method" of dialectic, I argue that the set of metaethical commitments I call "the ethics of transcendent virtue" has important advantages for teaching courses in professional ethics over the "constructivist-postmodern-moral-pragmatism" informing Robert J. Nash's text "Real world" Ethics: Frameworks for Educators and Human Service Professionals. I conclude with reflections upon the conditions under which dialectical encounters among proponents of different conceptual schemes are likely to be productive.