What are you morally and spiritually responsible for, if your critics and judges, mostly God and the angels, are reasonable, impartial and fair? You can only be held accountable for what you fully understand in a sane state of alert clear consciousness, during which you easily comprehend the action that you are considering to undertake, what are the alternatives to it, and what are the repercussions to others and yourself, based upon what you elect to do. Another aspect is that you must not just have the right motive, but cannot be held fully responsible for what you do not have the power to effect.
Under deontological ethics, the blame or praise is based upon the actor based on motive. It is enough to try to help, and results and unintended consequences are not relevant.
Results-based ethics are based upon outcomes, what you are empowered to change. You are responsible for your personal behavior, but you are not responsible for failing to save the world from nuclear holocaust, should it come about. That level of responsibility is beyond you, and your critics (including you as a self-critic) and judgers must admit to this freely.
God alone is powerful enough and smart enough to prevent nuclear holocaust. God can change the world but we cannot for we are small, not very bright, not very constant, reliable creatures.Even God may choose not to save the world for many reasons (out of respect for free will of evil doers, to not countermand some foreordained outcome of natural law that even God must honor and abide by, because Satan or Fate oppose De in this instance--for for a myriad of other mysterious reasons perhaps ever beyond our ability to grasp. Or God may have contractual obligations, that we are not privy to, contrary to desired this worldly outcomes that we prefer.
We did not make the world. We are not perfect enough or powerful enough or wise enough to operate the world or know how to save it, so we are not responsible for saving it. We do what we can as individuals in our micro-situation, in our personal lives. We must then become fatalistic and accept whatever happens, however unthinkable and horrible that outcome may be. It is our duty to let the world go to hell in a hand basket if that is its divine destiny. We are not to intercede, and would make no difference if we tried. We may even make things worse.
Our failure to accept our human limits in power and intelligence, in regard to saving the world, is the primary cause of corruption of idealists playing God in order to save the world. Embittered, radicalized idealists become obsessed with forcing others to conform to their plan for salvation of people and the world, that they will justify attacking the masses through war, violence, intimidation, torture and totalitarian coercion. Such vicious means to a noble end is so pernicious that it so corrupts the plan that the villains enforcing the plan brutally are transformed into creatures of demonic rot and menace, making things a whole lot worse.
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