from Essays After Montaigne
We cannot be tied beyond our strength and meanes. The reason is, because the effects and executions are not any way in our power, and except our will, nothing is truly in our power: on it onely are all the rules of man's dutie grounded and established by necessitie.
It's impossible for us to foresee the effects of our actions with any certainty. It's only over our will (our intent) that we have complete control. This is essentially the ancient Stoics' view of morality as summarized by Pierre Hadot:
What counts, after all, is not the result of our actions, for this is always uncertain; nor is it effectiveness. Instead, it is the intention of doing good. The Stoic always acts "under reserve": he tells himself, "I want to do X, if Fate permits." If Fate does not permit it, he will try to succeed in some other way, or else he will accept Fate by "willing what happens."
But this doesn't imply that as long as we "mean well," we're on solid moral footing. We're responsible for understanding our actions and their effects (especially on others) to the extent possible before acting, and once we've developed well-informed intentions, it's our responsiblity to act on them. How many people have defended a lifetime of bumbling or callousness by claiming that they meant well? How many people who've never performed a single act of religious devotion or humbled themselves before God claim to believe in their hearts? How many people claim to believe that the world could and should be a better place, but have never actually done anything to improve it?
(I don't mean to sound sanctimonious. There are times when I fall into each of those groups. I can never read the saying, common to all of the Abrahamic religions and--though not stated in this form--a central tenet of Buddhism, that "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" without feeling a deep pang of fear and regret. I know the ways in which the pursuit and acquisition of material comfort can distract me from my own best intentions. I know what it's like to want to enter the kingdom of heaven but to be unwilling to surrender the comfort of my riches.)
For the first five years out of graduate school, I worked with community development credit unions (federally regulated and insured financial institutions), and for the two years after that, I worked in the broader field of community development as a consultant. I came across people who believed that their good intentions justified their ill-convceived efforts to exercise fiduciary and social responsibility, while they were rendering the institutions under their charge insolvent and the communities that they were to serve that much more hopeless. True, they were confronting and attempting to correct ills that others didn't bother with, but given both the difficulty and importance of that work, it was their responsibility to become better equipped before acting.
I've heard remorseful parents of ill-adjusted children say they didn't know until they became parents that they were so unprepared to raise children. They claim that they were made to believe being a parent was something they were supposed to do, that they simply didn't know any better. I can't imagine anyone would honestly believe that creating and shaping another human being could ever be defensibly undertaken with so little reflection, just as I can't imagine unfaithful spouses or lovers expect anyone to believe that they didn't mean to cheat. An example of the latter can be found right here in the world of Salon Weblogs, with all of the usual qualifications and justifications:
For more of an ego boost than anything, I put my picture up on Hot or Not to see how it would go.
Like I stated before, wasn't looking for what I eventually got, and was only looking for a way to kill some time at work.
The Preacher addresses this very nicely:
In our world we have separated mind from body to our great loss. Here a man may betray his wife and neglect his children, but say he loves them "down inside."
Bullshit. There is no "down inside." Love is something you do, not something you feel.
Bullshit indeed. Though our intentions may not shape events in the way that we expect, events will ultimately reveal our true intentions.
8:13:40 AM 
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