Short answers, pulled from the story.
Śīla, or sīla in Pali, is the Buddhist term for ethics and moral conduct, one of the three sections of the Noble Eightfold Path. It describes a code rooted in nonviolence, harmony, and self-regulation rather than external obligation, and actions under it are judged as skillful or unskillful rather than simply good or evil.
The Five Precepts are the foundation of lay Buddhist ethics: abstaining from taking life, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, and from intoxicants such as liquors and wines. They are treated as voluntary training commitments rather than commandments, taken formally with the monastic Sangha or privately.
Karma means action, and in Buddhist ethics it refers specifically to intentional acts rather than fate. The Buddha stated, "It is intention, O monks, that I call karma; having willed one acts through body, speech, or mind" (AN 6.63), meaning accidental harm is not bad karma but a hurtful intention is.
Buddhist ethics holds that the first precept bans taking human or animal life and that right livelihood excludes trading weapons or working as a hunter or butcher. The Dhammapada states that "the victor begets enmity" and "the vanquished dwells in sorrow" (Dhammapada, 201), yet Buddhist states have still waged war throughout history, including Tibet's invasions of Bhutan and Ladakh under the 5th Dalai Lama.
No single Buddhist view requires vegetarianism; most Buddhists eat meat, though Chinese, Vietnamese, and most Korean Mahayana traditions oppose it on scriptural grounds. The Buddha distinguished killing an animal from eating meat someone else had killed, and set out a threefold rule to the layman Jivaka allowing meat not seen, heard, or suspected to have been slaughtered for the eater.
Buddhist ethics generally opposes capital punishment because it violates the first precept against killing, reflected in the Dhammapada's line "do not kill or cause to kill". Even so, most countries where Buddhism has been the state religion have carried out executions, with the exception of Emperor Saga of Japan, who abolished the death penalty in 818, a policy that lasted until 1165.