How do natural laws serves as the last resort in determining the right thing to do when written rules are unavailable?
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NATURAL LAW
A law or rule of action that is implicit in the very nature of things. The term is sometimes used in the plural form to designate laws that regulate the activities of nature in both the organic and the inorganic realm. Properly speaking, however, it is exclusively applied to man and designates a prescriptive rule of conduct naturally received by and measuring human reason which enables human reason rightly to measure human action. For St. thomas aquinas, "natural law is nothing other than the participation of eternal law in rational creatures" (Summa theologiae 1a2ae, 91.2); thus Aquinas conceives it as the imprint of God's providential plan on man's natural reason. This article is divided into three main sections. The first treats of the historical development of the concept of natural law; the second provides a Thomistic analysis of the concept; and the third discusses the place of the concept in contemporary theology and philosophy. (For specific applications of the concept, see natural law and jurisprudence; natural law in political thought.)