I have two main worries, which are drawn from Nagel and Mackay for their expression, though I think I agree with neither of these philosophers. First I will sketch my idea about right and wrong, incase my question depends on it.
Let "value" be a good, a kind of, for the sake of argument, belief about the world and what in it is has worth; I'm sorry I know no way of defining value without circularity. Intuitively and nothing more, I don't think these beliefs can be strictly true or false, but that some of them seem to be absolute and independent of any context. These seem to me to include a prohibition against another holocaust, and on a different scale, small minded petty cruelty. Moreover, I think that from these absolute standards, we can derive further ones. Not mechanically, but in dialogue with other people; and I think that this process is self correcting not because being moral is rational, but that we find, in living with them, that some ideologies about morality and meaning lead to a better happiness; almost as if they were more consistent with our absolute standards.
Nagel's view from nowhere. It seems that while I am still living and breathing and enjoying myself, my life has a certain currency, albeit a puny one in the context of all of humanity or existence. But once I've died and been forgotten, meaning can no longer depend on me or my small community; only it seems to me their place in the view from nowhere. And if that really is nowhere and time is infinite, how can anything still be valuable after the dissolution of myself?
Mackay's queerness argument. Not only does time the universe and life dwarf me, but it is entirely free of value, because none of these entities can be a source of real independent value.
If value is neither real nor enduring, then is it bunk?