Ma`rifat Farhangi Ejtemaei

In today’s world, democracy and human rights are two of the pillars of modern politics, but their relationship is not always smooth and harmonious. Democracy, often understood as majority rule, relies on the will of the people, expressed through means such as elections or referendums. This approach allows people to determine the fate of their society, but it also carries the risk of restricting the rights of certain groups, such as ethnic or religious minorities. This is where human rights come into play, with universal principles such as the right to life and equality that no majority can overturn.This tension raises profound questions in contemporary political philosophy: How do we prevent the tyranny of the majority without falling into the trap of elitism? Or how do we justify human rights without relying on metaphysical foundations? Traditional answers, such as seeing human rights as a constraint on democracy or democracy as a means of human rights, seem inadequate because they do not create an internal connection. The discourse rule of rationality, inspired by Habermas's theory of communicative action, offers a dialectical solution