The logical extreme of "no hierarchy of goals" is to have no law. A law is able to penalize certain goals that are actively harmful. This encodes consensus of a

The logical extreme of "no hierarchy of goals" is to have no law. A law is able to penalize certain goals that are actively harmful. This encodes consensus of a hierarchy, and many people believe it is useful (depending on the particular law). What you are suggesting is a nihilistic approach. Despite our collective inability to determine any "root goal" of the universe to aspire to, we collectively benefit from certain "local goals" - such as trash collection, trying to stop people from running around and killing others, having food (ideally good) available, etc. A "noble goal" is a social construct. You might actually define it as a goal with positive impact on a society that some members would rather not or cannot do themselves. I agree that people should not have their goals forced. However, the concept of a "noble goal" is useful in describing this evolutionarily emergent social phenomenon. And I am in favour of a societal incentive system that rewards positive impact to society. Most of my goals are pretty neutral, and I guess I don't really put much effort into any particularly noble ones. Open source software, I guess. Though I can see that some goals really have a large beneficial impact to the experience of life, and can't help but appreciate people who engage in those goals.