The "Greatest good for the greatest number": Is this a good land-use ethic?

Implicitly, the "greatest good for the greatest number" serves as the dominant land-use ethic of professional foresters, but is flawed for several reasons that are discussed in this paper. In effect, when foresters invoke this ethic when they recommend or make land-use decisions, they are "taking sides" politically in exactly those situations in which professionals are ethically required to be politically neutral. I suggest that this problem may have contributed to the profession's recent lack of public credibility, but it also represents an opportunity for the profession to enhance its credibility by designing and explicitly adopting a more appropriate land-use ethic.