Bad Things addresses various philosophical questions about the nature and moral relevance of harm. The most basic question is this: under what conditions does an event (or do some events) harm a given individual? Neil Feit focuses primarily on the metaphysics of harm, and he both defends and extends the counterfactual comparative account of harm. On this account, in its most basic form, an act or event harms an individual provided that she would have beenbetter off if it had not occurred. The counterfactual comparative account is widely accepted but also widely criticized. Feit provides detailed and thorough responses to the most challenging objections. He argues that an adequate theory of harm should entail the counterfactual comparative account but also makeroom for a certain kind plural harm, where two or more events together harm an individual although neither one by itself is harmful. These harmful events are bad things, collectively, even if no single event is itself a bad thing.
