"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.