well, first of all the phrase was used by john dewey in "the construction of the good", when he's discussing the role that religion played (before science became a more powerful authority).
ken knabb, on discussing the sits, says this:
Much of what makes people dissatisfied with their lives is their own moral poverty. They are encouraged on every side to be mean, petty, vindictive, spiteful, cowardly, covetous, jealous, dishonest, stingy, etc. That this pressure from the system removes much of the blame for these vices does not make it any less unpleasant to be possessed by them. An important reason for the spread of religious movements has been that they speak to this moral inquietude, inspiring people to a certain ethical practice that provides them with the peace of a good conscience, the satisfaction of saying what they believe and acting on it (that unity of thought and practice for which they are termed "fanatics").
The revolutionary movement, too, should be able to speak to this moral inquietude, not in offering a comfortingly fixed set of rules for behavior, but in showing that the revolutionary project is the present focus of meaning, the terrain of the most coherent expression of compassion; a terrain where individuals must have the courage to make the best choices they can and follow them through, without repressing their bad consequences but avoiding useless guilt.
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/85
anarchists in particular have long held that the means and the ends are the same, that we can't get to where we want if we're doing things that are counter to where we want to be. a simplistic example would be that we can't shoot our way to a peaceful society (if we even wanted that ;) ).
