The Role of Morality, According to Jacques Maritain, in Forming a True Democracy

That democracy is simply the result of people being heard, the so-called, ‘Will of the People,’ is the brain-child of Jean Jacque Rousseau. It is, in the words of Jacques Maritain, ‘the finest myth of Jean-Jacques.’[ii] The majority rules and becomes free not to obey anyone but themselves. Those who do not vote on the side of the majority are ‘forced to be free.’ Hence, it follows, according to Maritain, ‘that the first author of society is not God, the author of the natural order, but the will of man, and that the birth of civil law is the destruction of the natural law.’[iii] But mortal, fallible man on his own merits cannot produce a society that is protected against his very weaknesses. It needs help from above.