"Harm reduction" is commonly used to describe compassionate policies that address harmful behaviors by individuals:
Harm reduction (or less commonly known as harm minimization) is a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with human behaviors, even if those behaviors are risky or illegal. Examples of behaviors targeted for harm reduction policies include recreational drug use and prostitution.
For example, since many heroin addicts can't stop using, it's better to provide the user with clean needles, thus reducing the risk of disease transmission, even if we find heroin addiction unpalatable.
I support this policy approach to address deleterious behaviors by individuals, but I think harm reduction can also serve as a model for an effective, compassionate, universal political philosophy -- one that addresses harmful behaviors by a society or culture by reducing suffering even when it's not politically possible to immediately halt the underlying negative behavior (policy).
I don't pretend that this is a new philosophy. But I do offer it as a somewhat original way to explain the political approach many of us already practice. If we choose to work within our society's existing political framework, through the electoral process, we must often accept our inability to immediately change many harmful public policies that cause suffering. The path forward lies in reducing the harm to individuals even while the negative behaviors (policies) persist.
An (almost) ideal example is large-scale health care reform. The only caveat to this example is that broadly reforming our health care system lies within the realm that the harm reduction approach has been traditionally applied -- public health policy. But I'm arguing for a broader, universal model, not an approach limited to policies that address harmful behaviors by individuals, but one that reduces suffering within the context of our society's large-scale, harmful approach to health care: the for-profit, private health insurance industry.
A progressive friend recently told me that despite the specific, tangible benefits of the Affordable Care Act, the lives saved and reduced suffering of many individuals, he opposes it as public policy because it allows the health insurance industry to continue to exist. This viewpoint represents a dangerous and nihilistic approach to public policy, one disconnected from the realities of individual suffering, and, unfortunately, one that is becoming all too prevalent among progressives.
If we look at this issue through the lens of harm reduction, we see a society "addicted" to a health care system that relies on private, for-profit insurance. A sober analysis tells us that the political will to change that reality doesn't currently exist. And while I fully support education and activism to move the Overton window to a position in which single-payer is politically possible, we must address the immediate suffering of individuals who lack access to health care because of an inability to purchase insurance. The Affordable Care Act does exactly that.
Practicing harm reduction can often be psychological challenging. It requires us to accept behavior that we may not like, whether it's heroin addiction or capitalism run amok, putting our energy into reducing suffering instead of fighting a losing battle against the underlying behavior/policy. It almost requires simultaneously holding two opposing viewpoints in mind. But it is the essential foundation of effective progressive participation in our political system.
Again, this is not a new approach. We all know the aphorism that "the perfect is the enemy of the good" (or the enemy of the possible). But harm reduction gives us a metaphor for explaining and framing our practical political philosophy, and a foundational model that we can use when formulating our approach to all public policies -- always guided by the goal of reducing human suffering.