Negotiated harms in moralized policies: The case of Duterte’s war on drugs

Viewing a policy as harmful can lead to its moral condemnation. However, this harmfulness be constructed and negotiated different positions by building upon available, accessible, relevant discourses. This study examined how individuals harm in reasoning about contentious policy, Philippine President Duterte’s war on drugs, locally known tokhang. We conducted thematic analysis with attention discourse analyze interviews 12 Filipino young adults, using the Theory of Dyadic Morality starting point make sense constructions harm. Reasoning tokhang showed intentional agents vulnerable victims serving basis for positions. Moral condemnation drugs emphasized vulnerability intentionality government police agents. On other hand, justification drug agentic guilty crimes, potentially acting according protocol defend themselves, rogue independently policy. Ambiguous were also made possible when causality is unclear. These negotiations built broader discourses deployed sociopolitical context urban individual contexts characteristics contributing variations accessibility relevance certain resulting