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Ethics  A system of moral principles; a way of determining right and wrong.
Hedonism  A moral system based on maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain.
Asceticism  An approach to life emphasizing discipline and impulse control.
Legalism  Ethics based on the assumption that there are rules for human conduct and that morality consists of knowing the rules and obeying them.
Situationism  Ethics based on the assumption that there are no absolute rules, or at least very few, and that each situation must be judged individually.
Pederasty  Sex between an older man and a younger man, or a boy; sometimes called boy love.
Fertility cult  A form of nature religion in which the fertility of the soil is encouraged through various forms of ritual magic, often including ritual sexual intercourse.
Dualism  A religious or philosophical belief that body and spirit are separate and opposed to each other and that the goal of life is to free the spirit from the bondage of the body; thus a depreciation of the material world and the physical aspect of humanity.
Celibacy  The practice of remaining celibate. Sometimes used to refer to abstaining from sexual intercourse, the correct term for which is chastity. A celibate is a person who remains unmarried, usually for religious reasons.
Humanism  A philosophical system that denies a divine origin for morality and holds that ethical judgments must be made on the basis of human experience and human reason.
Moralism  A religious or philosophical attitude that emphasizes moral behavior, usually according to strict standards, as the highest goal of human life. Moralists tend to favor strict regulation of human conduct to help make people good.
Pluralism  A philosophical or political attitude that affirms the value of many competing opinions and believes that the truth is discovered in the clash of diverse perspectives. Pluralists, therefore, believe in the maximum human freedom possible.
Fornication  The biblical term for sex by unmarried persons and, more generally, all immoral sexual behavior.
Adultery  Voluntary sexual intercourse by a husband or wife with someone other than one's spouse; thus, betrayal of one's marriage vows.
Somatic cell nuclear transfer  A cloning technique that involves substituting genetic material from an adult's cell for the nucleus of an egg.
Therapeutic cloning  Creating tissues or cells that are genetically identical to those of a patient, to treat a disease.







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