The ends justify the means is a succinct statement of utilitarian ethics. Now, a utilitarian ethic can yield good and holy outcomes. But it can also yield strikingly evil outcomes.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.(NRSV, John 15)
Is a similarly succinct statement of agape ethics. This kind of ethical approach recasts the means ("laying down one's life") and the ends ("for one's friends") in a way that makes even death a life-giving act.
