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The philosophy of natural law is that all human beings are governed by basic innate laws pertaining to ethics and morals which are not legislated as such. For instance, murder may be considered illegal by positive law, but the idea that murder is morally wrong is a natural law theory. In addition to guiding ethics, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and many other philosophers suggest that natural laws guide human concepts of reason and rationality To put it simply, the natural law theory states that human reason, conscience and common sense should be used to judge fairness of one's conduct or actions with relation to the consequences such conduct or action is likely to give rise to. These laws are not standardized and the application of these laws and their validity in a particular situation are decided on the basis of the instinctive judgment of the human conscience - what we generally refer to as the right thing to do. People have different conceptions of what counts as right and wrong. They need a set of dictated rules to forcibly define justice, and without that definition they wind up in conflict. Ideally speaking it should not be a matter of compulsion but right. Man by nature is selfish and fails to comply with moral codes of justice. Hence, positive laws are required. Natural laws have been criticized time and again but they are not completely irrelevant today because they help us weigh options and decide between alternatives and suppress dangerous urges. (Insight before acting)