Ideals mix heart, mind and aesthetics. Goals are similar, indeed, but are far simpler things expressed by policy folks. Without a delicious ideal hovering nearby a goal is not sufficiently motivating.

A good example: the British king did not tap a shipping magnate to set up the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The cold, miserable winters of the first settlers (and battles with Native Americans who didn't find the incursion of Europeans very funny) were more likely to be endured by the Puritans like John Winthrop who held out the religious ideal of a "city on a hill" to be highly motivating.

This gets into some interesting neuroscience territory now often referred to as "embodied cognition" and "emotional intelligence."