Our Character Week concluded with the Educating for Moral Flourishing Conference (12–13 March 2026), hosted at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria by the Virtue and Values Education Centre. Across two days we explored interdisciplinary perspectives—virtue ethics, moral psychology, justice, sociology, and theology—through keynote lectures and parallel sessions, and renewed our shared commitment to educating for character and the common good.

Over the course of the two-day event, the conference combined plenary lectures and parallel sessions to explore moral flourishing from diverse perspectives, including literature, restorative justice, the role of emotion, theology, and the challenges of artificial intelligence. As Verónica Fernández, a member of the conference’s organizing and scientific committees, noted, the aim of the event was for it to be “a place where ideas are rigour exchanged, friendships are strengthened, and new collaborations emerge”.

Our keynote speakers offered six outstanding contributions. Professor Glen Pettigrove spoke on the character trait of “sweetness” as a moral quality in the work of Jane Austen, and its relationship to human flourishing. Professor Chiara Palazzolo, for her part, challenged dominant retributive and utilitarian conceptions of punishment, proposing a form of restorative justice that genuinely promotes flourishing. 

In his paper, Professor Carlos Granados presented a synthesis of the principal strands of the Christian vision of flourishing in virtue: the following of Christ, and the centrality of love and the body. Professor Mario De Caro explored the relationship between flourishing and artificial intelligence, asking what kind of ethical framework ought to be embedded within such systems in order to serve the common good. Professor Martín Echavarría examined the explanatory power of Thomistic psychology of love in accounting for the deeper roots of moral flourishing. 

Finally, Professor James Arthur argued for the need to rethink how human flourishing is conceived, advocating a synthesis of interdisciplinary knowledge in order to establish a compelling and applicable anthropological account of moral flourishing.

We are deeply grateful to all our parallel session speakers whose work spanned themes from practical wisdom and digital technologies to role models, forgiveness, justice, education in universities, and the unity of the virtues.

With this conference, our Centre and the Francisco de Vitoria University, have once again created a forum for academic reflection on one of the most critical questions facing contemporary education: how to educate people who are capable not only of acting well, but also of living well, growing in humanity, and contributing to the good of society.

Our sincere thanks as well to UFV and to our Rector, Daniel Sada, for his support, and to everyone who contributed to making this conference possible.