Jeremy Bentham, the person responsible for originally developing the utilitarian theory suggested that utility should guide our actions. Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to promote the reverse of happiness. Essentially, Mills suggested that pleasure and freedom from pain are alone desirable as ends. In pluralistic utilitarianism, no single goal or state makes up good. Naturally, there are several criticisms of utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism can lead to social injustices, particularly in social distributions.
In the process of promoting efficiency, productivity and convenience, utilitarianism fails to account for basic principles that in justice cannot be modified. Deontological theories state that moral standards exist independent of the end results. Rather, ethics come from a binding obligation or duty to do right. Actions are morally wrong not because of the consequences, but because the action itself involves a moral violation. Philosophers promoting deontological thinking further suggest that motives matter.