Aquinas' Natural Law implies divine, immutable, eternal laws. Human beings can know natural law through their faculties of reason; however, not all manmade laws reflect natural law. All natural law is fair and just. Natural law often stands in direct opposition to human law, and human beings also possess animal instincts that can come into conflict with the Natural Law. The Natural Law is at the root of human morality. Only rational creatures, not the animals, are capable of acting in accordance with Natural Law. If animals act in accordance with Natural Law they do so unconsciously; the human being possesses the unique power to act in accordance with Natural Law out of choice and free will. Natural Law permits righteous judgment of behavior.
According to Aquinas, Natural Law supercedes all human law. Human law can follow from Natural Law and should ideally be a more specific interpretation of the generalities of Natural Law. For example, if the Natural Law dictates that it is wrong to kill, the human law codifies this ethical mandate by differentiating between types of killing: murder, manslaughter, and killing in self-defense. Human law is necessary to account for all the complexities and details of human society; Natural Law alone is insufficient because it is too broad. Human law can be defined as the mundane and specific interpretations of Natural Law. Human law and human reason should therefore be as servants to the Natural Law; when there is a dispute in human law, the dispute may be resolved by returning to the source of that law in Nature.
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