A protocol is described for a scoping review that will map ethical arguments for and against the voluntary use of psychedelics as moral bioenhancers. The review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology, searching multiple databases for published and unpublished sources that present explicit ethical arguments. Sources focused primarily on clinical treatment or unavailable in English will be excluded. Two independent raters will assess eligibility, with disagreements resolved by a third reviewer. Data will be charted and analyzed following PRISMA-ScR guidelines.
Functional unmasking (unblinding) in clinical trials for mental health treatments, especially with psychedelics, can bias results because participants often know they received the active drug due to its unmistakable acute effects. This undermines confidence that outcomes reflect true therapeutic properties rather than placebo-like effects. A counterfactual conceptualization formalizes the shortcomings of existing solutions like dose-response and active controls, and shows how modern causal inference approaches can isolate effects free of this contamination. Feedback mechanisms between perceived benefits and expectancies can make traditional methods obscure or exaggerate therapeutic benefits. The proposal motivates trial designs and statistical methods to mitigate the impacts of functional unmasking.