Abstract
In this chapter, character strengths and their education are conceptualized in terms of virtue science, an emerging field that has a strong and growing research base. This good beginning suggests that it would be timely to take stock of this emerging science and to identify its current strengths and weaknesses. Among the strengths of current virtue science are its solid beginning in empirical research with specific achievements, such as the successful measurement of many virtues, evidence that social desirability and other veracity concerns are not debilitating, evidence that virtues are not easily subsumable within personality traits, and an increasingly interdisciplinary approach. Challenges remain including the difficulties of interdisciplinary work, a residual weakness in conceptual depth, an overreliance on single timepoint self-report studies, the frequent separation of research on virtues and flourishing, the acultural tenor of virtue research, and an insufficient focus on individual differences in the science of virtue and flourishing.