People distinguish moral badness from evil by something beyond harmfulness

Evidence

Evil actions are a subset of bad actions; all evil actions are bad, but not all bad actions are evil. A sports fan, provoked in a barroom by another who vilifies the losing performance of the fan’s much-loved sports team, punches his tormenter. A morally bad action, but not one we would be prone to call evil. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3868

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes evil as a nested subset of bad actions, with a concrete barroom example of bad-but-not-evil.
• SEED: A natural essay angle: the folk taxonomy of evil vs merely bad — what extra ingredient (callousness, gratuitousness, intent) tips an act into evil in lay judgment.