ABSTRACT
What is the relationship between evil and wrongdoing? Is evil just very wrong? Or is there a qualitative distinction between evil and wrongdoing? Many people (both theorists and laypeople) share the intuition that there is a qualitative distinction between evil and wrongdoing. We feel differently about evil actions – horror and repulsion rather than mere disapproval – and we think that this difference in feeling reflects qualitative differences in the objects of our feelings. However, it isn’t always clear what we mean when we say that evil is qualitatively, as opposed to quantitatively, distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. Nor is it clear that it matters whether the distinction between evil and wrongdoing is qualitative or quantitative.
