What is the main conclusion of the passage?
Doctors have long known that a sugar pill can relieve pain, and some argue that prescribing one is harmless kindness. The reasoning is that if a patient feels better, the means hardly matter. The reasoning fails on two counts. First, a prescription that rests on deception cannot survive discovery: once patients learn that doctors sometimes dispense dummy pills, every future prescription becomes suspect, including those that work. Second, the patient is denied the chance to consent to the treatment actually given. Evidence suggests that placebos may work even when patients know what they are taking, which removes the supposed need for deceit. If honesty costs little, the case for lying has nothing left to stand on.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. Prescribing placebos by deception cannot be justified
- Step 1: The author lists two failures of the pro-deception reasoning and ends by saying the case for lying has nothing left to stand on.
- Step 2: So the conclusion is that deceptive placebo prescribing is unjustified.
Answer
Prescribing placebos by deception cannot be justified.
Why not the others: The author accepts that placebos can relieve pain, makes no claim about all unproven medicines, rejects the harmlessness view, and does not call open placebos dangerous.
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