OE


For the first blank, we obviously need a word that means something like law or prohibition. Litigation (judicial proceeding in a court) has to do with the law, but is not appropriate for this sentence; we need a word that means the ban itself, not what happens when a ban is broken. Vituperation (violent denunciation) expresses great depth of feeling but is not formal enough; it is easy to imagine someone denouncing something that is perfectly legal. The correct answer is proscription (prohibition or the act of prohibiting).
The key to filling in the second blank is the idea that different societies may define murder differently; as the second half of the passage informs us, someone who takes Buddhism seriously might regard even killing in self-defense as wrong. The definition of the crime, then, is controversial or unclear. It is going too far to say the definition is fallacious (logically unsound or misleading); the basic idea behind outlawing murder is a good and sound one. Clearly, however, the definition is not inclusive (comprehensive or including everything concerned), because some cultures could have a very restricted notion of what constitutes murder. Contentious (characterized by argument) is the correct answer.