Ethicist: Studies have documented the capacity of placebos to reduce pain in patients who believe that they are receiving beneficial drugs  Some doctors say that they administer placebos because medically effective treatment reinforced by the placebo effect sometimes helps patients recover faster than good treatment alone
But administering placebos is nonetheless ethically questionable, for even if a placebo benefits a patient, a doctor might, for example, have prescribed it just to give the patient satisfaction that something was being done
The motivation for administering a placebo can be relevant to the ethical justification for doing so.