Bangladesh, April 15 -- The argument over how society should respond to addiction is usually framed in medical or political terms, but beneath it lies a moral dispute: what kind of thing is addiction, and what does our answer imply about responsibility, dignity, and hope?

Two models dominate public imagination. The abstinence model insists that recovery must mean total cessation of use. The harm-reduction model begins from a humbler conviction: if people cannot or will not abstain, we still owe them care, safety, and the preservation of life. Behind these policies stand rival pictures of the human condition—one that prizes purity and control, another that accepts fragility and compromise as the ground of moral life.

In the twentie...