What I mean is, do you essentially picture your vision of an ideal society, and then work backwards and ask what rules or principles would be necessary to make that the outcome? Or do you imagine your ideas of right and wrong, the role of government, the role of social norms, etc first, and then 'press play' on them in a sense, and see what society comes out and just accept the result as the byproduct of those principles?
Are right and wrong, the role of the State, the role of cultures, the responsibilities of the individual, and so on ideas you can imagine in their ideal form in abstract, independent from any specific implementation, or are they tools one uses to get the outcome they want, and if they do not achieve that outcome, you change or modify the tools so that you do get the outcome you want?
Outcomes are more important than principals but there's some nuances. Right and wrong is determined by genetics and the state should exemplify the genetics of the people within the state. Any state that is not an enthnostate is tyrannical and not a good state. From your description it's better to envision good principals for a state and then letting the pieces fall rather than trying to dictate outcomes because humans are adaptable and circumstances change which alters outcomes. You'll never get any state of ideal outcomes one person has but you can get ideal principals and then the outcomes will adjust given the changing circumstances which is fine.
You're basically asking communism vs. capitalism. Communists determine outcomes and then try to force everything to happen to get those outcomes but it never works because you cannot account for all the moving parts of humanity. Capitalists say these are the best principals and whatever outcome happens is just given just principals. I lean on the capitalist side. The major point of contention though for capitalists is that many principals aren't just. For example it's not right to advocate for the Civil Rights Act and push immigration then abolish the Civil Rights Act when Whites are 20% of the total population thus destroying Whites. This is all government orchestrated planning that appears capitalist and not communist but it's entirely communist. The principals were never good in the first place so the outcomes aren't justified or good either. Principals thus must be viewed over long periods of time not just an the immediate period of time. A good principal now might not be a good principal later and vice-versa. Also, when previous principals were unjust, simply changing to the correct principal might not be just given the harm caused by the previously unjust principal.
At the end of the day, there are ideal principals but implementing them now might not be ideal given the outcomes it would cause because of past unjust principals. Therefore, you really have to take into consideration both not one or the other.