Coleen Macnamara

Morally bad and morally wrong action share a core element: both thwart the values at the heart of morality. To be sure, determining when the thwarting of moral values warrants the label of ‘bad’ as opposed to ‘wrong’ is a difficult, complicated matter. Nor is it immediately clear what difference the distinction between bad and wrong makes from the perspective of the moral agent deliberating about how to act. I myself endorse Margaret Little’s (forthcoming) view that while wrong action necessarily betrays some weak will, deficiency of discernment, or difficulty in deliberating on part of the agent, bad action need not. But the fact that the distinction between bad and wrong brings to the fore deep and difficult philosophical questions should not obscure the point that concerns us here: namely, that bad and wrong action are bad and wrong because they thwart values at the heart of morality.