Can Values Be Arbitrary?

When a perspective is taken, it is often done in relation to others. It creates the illusion of non-arbitrariness, because there is a point of comparison. For example, the standards of morality are compared with that of the rest of the world, other cultures or even the past. In relation to those, one finds one's value.

Yet values do not have actual "value" attached to them. They cannot be evaluated in isolation. In fact, that sounds dangerously like arbitrariness already. Worse yet, the very selection of the points of comparison cannot help but be arbitrary, because they are compared with something that has no intrinsic value to begin with.

Where is the standard of validity, then? While it is easy enough to invoke the supernatural and to point out historical precedents, I think it is difficult to deny that values can and are arbitrary. After acknowledging this, there is nothing wrong with accepting arbitrary values. However, it must then be acknowledged that since they are arbitrary, values can actually be changed. They are certainly not set in stone.