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The article presents an edited transcript of a debate on moral enhancement between John Harris and Julian Savulescu during the "Enhancement: Cognitive, Moral and Mood" conference held at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. Topics discussed include morality's ability to keep up with scientific change and if not, whether it should be compulsory, Harris' skepticism about moral enhancement's value and methodologies, and how to bridge the gap between what people see to be right and how people act.

This article explores the consequences of interventions to secure moral enhancement that are at once compulsory and inescapable and of which the subject will be totally unaware. These are encapsulated in an arresting example used by Ingmar Perrson and Julian Savulescu concerning a “God machine” capable of achieving at least three of these four objectives. This article demonstrates that the first objective—namely, moral enhancement—is impossible to achieve by these means and that the remaining three are neither moral nor enhancements nor remotely desirable. Along the way the nature of morality properly so called is further explored.

The article discusses the prospect of human reproductive cloning. The responses of members of the European Parliament and former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on human cloning following the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal, in 1997 are cited. The alleged threat of cloning to individuality, the right to know a person's genetic origins and the role of human reproductive cloning in eliminating disease and disability are explored.

In this issue of CQ we introduce a new feature, “By Invitation,” in which noted bioethicists are invited to reflect on vital current issues. Our first invitee, John Harris, will subsequently assume editorship of this section. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]