Having reviewed Aristotle's thoughts on the development of virtue we will now take a look at some contemporary psychological thinking on the subject. When psychology became an empirical science in the late nineteenth century, concepts like virtue and character went largely unnoticed because they could not be examined in the laboratory. Even today the suspicion of philosophical concepts endures in psychology. However, things are changing. Peterson and Seligman have produced a scholarly and impressively comprehensive handbook on the subjects of character and virtue. Rather than avoiding the philosophical literature they have embraced portions of it to set the stage for a psychological analysis of what they deem the major virtues and noting that they are desperately needed to redirect our society. “After a detour through the hedonism of the 1960s, the narcissism of the 1970s, the materialism of the 1980s, and the apathy of the 1990s, most everyone today seems to believe that character is important after all.” Peterson and Seligman do a wonderful job of describing certain core virtues that seem to transcend culture. The theory and evidence they review includes what psychologists have for many years referred to as moral development. The psychological study of moral development addresses many of the issues raised by Aristotle, including the limited cognitive abilities of young children and the need for careful guidance during this period.