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 … Continue reading Coleen Macnamara