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Morals and ethics are synonyms, but as with many synonyms, there is a considerable difference in their connotations.
When one speaks of morals, what one usually has in mind is sexual behavior—relationships between people that are not socially acceptable. Westerners commonly discuss such subjects without prudery or embarrassment, being careful about the words used. What follows are some words that are relatively acceptable in general use (be very careful with those I label slang—I have not included any profane words here, so the slang is not profanity, but it still may be insulting.
Some words that denote behavior widely seen as socially unaccepted are prostitution, homosexuality, adultery, promiscuity, infidelity, rape, perversion, and deviance. Prostitution is illegal most of the time and generally considered immoral. It is when something of value (usually money, of course) is demanded in return for sex. In English, prostitution is often referred to indirectly as “the world’s oldest profession.” The most common slang word for a prostitute is a whore, although this changes constantly and is derogatory. Homosexuality is, less and less in today’s world, illegal, and some societies do not label it as immoral either, while others do. It refers to a person’s main sexual orientation—if towards those of the same sex, the person is a homosexual. The more common norm, where the orientation is to the opposite sex, is heterosexual. (Female homosexuals are more often called lesbians.) The most common slang word is gay, (which is not derogatory) and the older (derogatory) words queer, homo, fag, faggot. The slang for a heterosexual is straight—neither gay nor straight are derogatory. A queen or drag queen is not necessarily a homosexual—it refers to (mainly) men who wear women’s clothing for one reason or another (sometimes on the stage for comic purposes). To go in drag is the expression for men dressing like women or women dressing like men. (A grammar comment here: technically, the phrases used in the above sentence should be “as women and “as men.” The use of “like” as though it were a preposition is now, however, so common that those who insist on the older form seem excessively fussy.) Adultery is a general term for any sexual activity with anyone other than one’s spouse. Such a person is an adulterer and one commits adultery not has adultery—that is a common mistake because the idiom is to have sex, not commit sex. Promiscuity refers to having a large number of different sexual partners (such a person is promiscuous). The common word for such a person (derogatory) is slut. In the worldwide double standard that applies to sexual behavior, promiscuous men are rarely called sluts and promiscuous women always are. Infidelity is a general word for any form of unfaithfulness, not just of the sexual sort. When you have a special relationship with someone (spouse, parent, child, friend, employer, employee, business associate, etc.) and you act against that relationship, it is infidelity. The synonym unfaithfulness is more often associated with marital infidelity. Rape is a serious crime—it involves using force for sex. There are in most countries two legal forms of rape—statutory rape and forcible rape. The first is sex with a child not old enough to give meaningful consent. The second is sex with an adult who either fights against it or, at a minimum, does not give consent (not even implied). The word rape is also used metaphorically to refer to situations where one person unfairly took advantage of another—such as in business transactions. There is also a slang expression for metaphorical rapes—to screw. Perversion and deviance are synonyms, with the first being more derogatory than the second is (although both should be used carefully when referring to people). Technically, perversion is any turning away from a standard of normalcy and usually implies that this turning away is not good. Technically, deviance is variation from any standard at all, and is less likely to appear in a derogatory context. In actual use, perversion is almost always used about sexual behavior, and deviance usually is. To call someone a pervert is a strong insult; to call them a deviant is much less so, but be careful to explain what you mean if you don’t intend an insult. Now, this is all about sexual morals. There are other kinds of morality. Stealing, lying, murdering, and so on, are all considered immoral. However, a more common word for non-sexual immorality is unethical. Ethical also implies a less religious source of one’s rules about behavior while moral tends to imply a religious base. Confusing the entire business is whether something is legal or illegal. In modern secular states religious considerations do not enter into thinking when laws are being enacted and enforced: In these cases, the matter is assessed in accordance with practical (pragmatic) considerations or sometimes with philosophical (ideological) considerations. Therefore, calling something illegal says nothing about the behavior’s morality or ethics, even though the fact that something is illegal is often considered a sign that it may be unethical. Ethics can be studied as an academic subject, as a branch of philosophy and someone who is considered authoritative about ethical matters is an ethicist. This is different from a moralist, which is a slightly derogatory expression to describe someone who takes a morally superior position (also called self-righteousness—a more strongly derogatory expression). (In the past moralist was more closely synonymous to ethicist, but this has evolved).
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