Thoughts
When I was younger I generally followed consequentialist ethics, but in the last 3-4 years I've pivoted to place much more value on whether
an action is good in itself.
One of the big problems for me with utilitarianism is that it doesn't provide a framework to preserve individual rights, especially privacy. Spying on someone 24/7 without their knowledge has zero tangible negative benefit to them, and it may give you some advantage, but that doesn't make it okay.
The two advantages of consequentialism is that it very nicely solves the trolley problem and similar, and that it provides a way to criticize the actions of the negligent but well-intentioned.
The advantage of consequentialism is that it doesn't require "thought-crime" analysis to determine whether an action is good or not. Two people doing the exact same thing can't be "good" and "bad" depending on what they're thinking. Joe and Jill both wake up in the morning and put their gun in their coat, but one is taking a precaution in self-defense and the other fully intends on committing murder. They've taken the same action and that action hasn't yet had any negative consequences and so consequentialism deems them both innocent. And yet, the disadvantage is that it feels like it should be possible to commend murder as soon as the thought of murder occurs.
There are a lot of times in the real world where I'm tempted to take a half-step towards a negative action. For example, watching a friend type in their password and writing it down. Under consequentialism, I should, as it has no negative effects and potential future positive effects. (Obviously, there are counter arguments, to that, some utilitarians would say that that is not optimal. I have considered it, they're wrong. Saving the password is optimal.) And yet, the action itself is, pretty clearly in my mind, wrong. It's not right to steal people's passwords, even if you only use them for good. But again, that's frustrating because I want to maximize the amount of good that I can do.
It may be possible to reconcile these by taking utilitarian approach to maximizing your relationship with all people and with God, instead of just with all people, but that feels ripe for begging the question. For now, I'm still hung up on that privacy point.
Oh I forgot to post it but I came up with a really good Christian argument against pacifism a couple of weeks again.