Does the end ever justify the means?

[Edwardo Piet]

What are the other options for justifying means, besides ends?

The theory that it's the ends that matter is called consequentailism. Or in other words, it's the consequences that matter. In this sense the so called 'means' would also be an end and the only time the means doesn't justify the end is when that specific means (that specific consequence) is more negative than the end (the consequence) that that means (consequence) fails to justify.

I agree extremely strongly with this:

Everyone knows—or thinks he knows—that consequentialism fails to capture much of what we value. This is true almost by definition, because, as Ryan observes, “serious competing theories of value and morality exist.”

But if the categorical imperative (one of Kant’s foundational contributions to deontology, or rule-based ethics) reliably made everyone miserable, no one would defend it as an ethical principle. Similarly, if virtues such as generosity, wisdom, and honesty caused nothing but pain and chaos, no sane person could consider them good. In my view, deontologists and virtue ethicists smuggle the good consequences of their ethics into the conversation from the start.

Source:

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/clar...-landscape

My position is "Forget all this means/ends lark.... it's the consequences that matter. Regardless of if that's the final consequence or the earlier consequences".

For example, in the example CD gives where the final consequence is world peace but the means is universal genocide... the reason why universal genocide isn't worth world peace is because the immediate consequences of universal genocide are so bad that they're not worth going through to reach the final consequence of world peace.