I have used this book and its companion volume for my intro to ethics courses. I would recommend the texts for instructors who want to make use of case-studies in applied ethics. However, I have to supplement the text insofar as primary source material is overlooked. Stuart Rachels has a pretty good suggested syllabus on his website.

Pros: good for applied ethics, intuitive presentation, appropriate for 100-level courses,

Cons: lack of primary source material, no meta-ethics, poor presentations of egoism and virtue ethics ( )

This is a great text for an introductory level ethics course at a community or state college. I probably wouldn't use it to teach a university class, as it's a bit oversimplified, but Rachels does a fantastic job of explaining the major ethical theories in terms that can be understood by the non-philosopher. This text pairs up well with his The Right Thing to Do in a course that deals with applied ethics also. ( )