Geoffrey D. Claussen and Christian Miller, “Character and Musar,” in The Routledge Companion to Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Rynhold and Tyron Goldschmidt (Routledge, 2025), 269–279.
Issues of character are discussed throughout the history of Jewish literature, especially within the genre known as musar literature—literature focused on character and virtue. Jewish thinkers in diverse contexts have pointed to a range of significant virtues, developed various understandings of human nature, and recommended diverse strategies for cultivating virtue. The ancient, medieval, and modern Jewish views discussed in this chapter connect in various ways to ongoing debates in contemporary philosophy and psychology about character.
