...if all value depends on a conscious valuer [a person], on a valuing subject, and if naturalism is true, then all value is entirely dependent upon human preference, and therefore, fails to be authoritative in the way morality requires.Something is valuable because a conscious mind places value upon it. Gold is valuable because humans place a value on it. However, if I'm stuck on a desert island with no food or water, but find a pirate's gold treasure, the value of that gold diminishes in light of my current needs, wants, preferences, and values. In my home where I have food and water, the gold becomes valuable again. Values fluctuate depending on the valuer and circumstances. In a closed system with only human valuers, there are no objective values...they will change with needs and preferences. In this closed system, who is determine which needs, preferences, or values are authoritative? In this system, moral obligation - moral duty, the "ought" - disappears. Social and political obligations do not have the authority of moral obligation; that is, things one must do or not do regardless of human preferences, needs, desires, or values.
If morality is subjective, then there must be subjects; therefore, obligations are relational. The moral concepts of right, wrong, and obligation require a mind, someone to do the permitting, the forbidding, or the requiring, and, similarly, someone to do the obeying: "Right, wrong, and obligation are concepts related to the actions that people perform in relation to some standard set by another person or persons." I think this is an important point. Harris' concepts of well-being - of suffering and happiness - are not complete. If a tree falls on me in the woods and breaks my leg - and my well- being suffers - is the tree "wrong"? Should the tree be punished for the suffering it inflicted upon me? No. So, although my well-being was diminished, no moral violation occurred. It seems we need more than mere "well-being" for morality, and one of the additional things we need is a community of person.
While standards of morality are based on what we value, this doesn't mean that there isn't anything objective about morality: there can be an objective fact of the matter about whether something meets a moral standard, even if the standard itself if subjective. For example, if a knife ought to be sharp, then we can determine if a knife meets that standard of sharpness. Once we deem reneging on a promise to be wrong, it's an objective fact that your reneging is wrong. Regardless, the point is the same: according to Stokes, moral standards are a matter of preference, of what persons value.
Stokes also brings up the concept of function, in particular, in relation to what makes a good person. A good doctor is someone who can help a person gain health; a good accountant is someone who can keep track of money. But what makes a good person? A good person performs the function of a person. A good person is what a person ought to be. Of course, this assumes a person has a function, that they're for something, that they have an end or telos. If naturalism is true, what is a human for? Well, says who? It would appear that humans don't have an objective (human-independent) function. A telos or end or goal seems to require a mind that can have that goal in mind. Can humans agree on what the end of being human is? Under naturalism, the purposes or goals will vary from one person to the other. Good is ultimately defined by us. What makes a person good is whatever we say makes a person good.
In the next chapter, Stokes asks if humans cannot ultimately ground morality, can God?.
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