I think James Charles Napier said it best. When addressing the practice of sati (burning the wife to death on her husband’s funeral pyre), he responded to accusations of disrespecting local customs thusly:
> "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
An implicit premise in moral relativism is that part of our morality should be respecting other moral systems. As soon as you notice that, it becomes clear that we must use something other than relativism to base our morals on.
But answering this specific case does not require a complete theory of morality. Killing children is bad. End of moral analysis.
> "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
An implicit premise in moral relativism is that part of our morality should be respecting other moral systems. As soon as you notice that, it becomes clear that we must use something other than relativism to base our morals on.
But answering this specific case does not require a complete theory of morality. Killing children is bad. End of moral analysis.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_James_Napier