Emphasizing individual rights

A self-evident prerequisite for a collective decision-making rule is that it should be "non-dictatorial"; that is, it should not reflect the values of any single individual. A minimal requirement for protecting individual rights is that the rule should respect the individual preferences of at least some people in at least some dimension, for instance regarding their personal sphere. However there is a fundamental dilemma in that no collective decision rule can fulfil such a minimal requirement on individual rights and the other requirements for collective decision making. This finding initiated an extensive scientific discussion about the extent to which a collective decision rule can be made consistent with a sphere of individual rights.