Fathers Of Our Actions

This habit of forming opinions, and acting upon them without evidence, is one of the most immoral habits of the mind. ...  As our opinions are the fathers of our actions, to be indifferent about the evidence of our opinions is to be indifferent about the consequences of our actions.  But the consequences of our actions are the good and evil of our fellow-creatures.  The habit of the neglect of evidence, therefore, is the habit of disregarding the good and evil of our fellow-creatures.

-- James Mill (6 April 1773 - 23 June 1836), Scottish utilitarian philosopher.  He was the father of the political philosopher John Stuart Mill, The Westminster Review, vol. 6 (1826), p. 13