Identify what is intrinsically bad (i.e. bad all by itself). Examples might include physical pain, mental anguish, sadistic impulses and betrayal of innocents.
We could reverse the ideas presented in the previous section and say that whatever produces bad results has to be bad but again, it depends on the perspective of why someone is doing something. For example parents might put pressure on their children to oblige some moral social duties that could be labeled as “mental torture” and an obstacle to personal growth (Belsky 1984) but it might be necessary. Physical pain, and betrayal are in my opinion the best candidates to be intrinsically bad as these two variables can only yield negative effects on the person they are inflicted upon. Sadistic impulses have been characterized as a mental disorder and research has indicated that it can cause severe depression (Rochlin, 1953). So it has to be an intrinsically bad character and always yield negative emotions and cause distress.