For me:
The Good, The Bad, & the Difference: How to Tell Right from Wrong in Everyday Situations by Randy Cohen
Randy Cohen writes a weekly column called "The Ethicist" for the New York Times Magazine. He's won four Emmy's for writing for TV shows. By his own admission, he has no ethicist credentials. I didn't realize that last part when I checked this book out from the library. The book is essentially a collection of the author's answers to ethical queries that people have sent in to him, typically regarding common, everyday ethical dilemmas. Sometimes he provides opinions and arguments on the situations from other people such as his mother, professionals in fields relevant to the questions, his column's readers, and sometimes random people, for whom he gives no explanation of who they are. The book has 7 main sections which are Civic Life, Family Life, Social Life, Commercial Life, Medical Life, Work Life, and School Life. Each section has a bit of general commentary on its topic at the beginning. There's also a bit of general ethics commentary at the beginning of the book. The book has 277 pages.
Overall, I find the book to be very entertaining, if lacking a bit in depth. After reading the author's answers to some of the questions I can't say I'm too surprised he doesn't have any official credentials in ethics. While some of the questions get fairly in depth answers, many of them receive answers that barely scratch the surface, while yet others simply have a humorous one line reply. While the author generally tries to apply consistent values in his answers, he doesn't seemed too concerned about maintaining perfect consistency in his application of values and ethical reasoning throughout the book. Regarding his ethical values he states:
In considering an ethical question, whether concerning the right conduct of an individual or the society within which we function, I refer to a set of principles I cherish as profoundly moral. This constellation of values includes honesty, kindness, compassion, generosity, fairness. I embrace actions that will increase the supply of human happiness, that will not contribute to human suffering, that are concordant with an egalitarian society, that will augment personal freedom, particularly freedom of thought and expression.
While the book may be somewhat lacking in well thought out and consistently applied ethical positions, it is quite interesting, and I am reading through it very quickly. The author often employs humor in his responses and sometimes is genuinely funny, but sometimes I just wish he would save it. I think the best thing about the book might just be the presentation of all the different ethical scenarios, which are interesting to think of on your own.
I think I would give the book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
The book's amazon page http://www.amazon.com/Good-Bad-Differen ... 952&sr=8-1