Vincent del Prado

In this essay, we explore two salient kinds of value conflict between instructors and students and how such conflict can cause both pedagogical and professional challenges for instructors. We delineate two main forms of value conflict: between instructors and students and between students and their peers. We highlight case studies for each example, illustrating first-order pedagogical consequences and second-order social, political, and professional consequences for each conflict type. In response to the two kinds of conflicts instructors in both K–12 and higher education face, we propose Ethics Bowl–style pedagogy as a strategy for addressing each type of conflict. We argue that by utilizing pedagogical tools taken from and inspired by Ethics Bowl, instructors at various institutions and academic levels can mitigate the multiple consequences associated with each value-conflict kind.

Smartphone technology is ubiquitous and subject to frequent complaints, both by reformers and the recalcitrant. The ubiquity of smartphone technology has led to many negative consequences, some of which may not be fully addressed by empirically oriented literature. One such consequence is a threat to a certain kind of autonomy. I argue that this threat justifies a form of Cynicism about smartphone technology, styled after ancient Cynicism. Cynicism is importantly different from its colloquialized, contemporary namesake (“cynicism”). While ancient Cynicism shares the theme of opting out, in some sense, with contemporary cynicism, it is not a philosophy of withdrawn futility; in fact, the Cynic emphasis on embodiment may have an import on our lives in a time of smartphone ubiquity. Accordingly, I offer one Cynic value, autarkeia (self-sufficiency), which can be recruited to address the way that smartphone technology threatens our autonomy.