Ethics of placebo use in clinical practice: why we need to look beyond deontology

Beneficent clinical usage of placebos has been a problem for the application of Kant's deontology in medical ethics, which, in its strictest form, rejects deception universally. Some defenders of deontology have countered this by arguing placebos can be used by a physician without necessarily being deceptive. In this paper we argue that such a manipulation of Kant's absolutism is not credible, and therefore, that we should look beyond deontology in our consideration of placebo usage in clinical practice. We conclude that Kant's deontology cannot be made compatible with placebo use in clinical practice due to the primacy it affords to the principle of autonomy.