Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf - Brief article - Book review

Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life. By Ronald A. Howard and Clinton D. Korver. Harvard Business School Press, 240 pages. $24.95.

Though not an easy book to go through--as its presentation is formal and highly theoretical--Ethics offers rewards in the form of new ways of assessing common ethical issues and creating a personal code with "touchstones" for guidance.

For instance, Howard and Korver posit that "ethical dilemma" is something of a misnomer. People rarely have to choose between two wrongs, they argue; what usually happens is the temptation to do something wrong creates enough potential gain that it trumps a decision to act ethically instead.

One of the book's shining passages examines changes at the United Way for the Washington, D.C., area following a 2003...