According to the utilitarian view, one's actions are judged on the results, not on the ______.

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Utilitarian ethics judges actions by their outcomes—the overall happiness or welfare they produce. Because the focus is on results, the internal aim behind the act isn’t what determines its morality. The missing element is intention: what the person planned to achieve isn’t the basis for the moral verdict; the consequences are. For example, even if someone’s motive was to help, a harmful outcome would undermine the action’s moral status under utilitarianism; and a well-intentioned act that leads to great harm would be judged negatively for its results. The other options point to aspects not central to utilitarian evaluation: duty aligns with rule-based ethics, style is about presentation, and motive is related to why someone acted but is not the primary metric when outcomes are what matter.