Democracy is more than a collection of institutions, laws, and freely contested sources of authority. It is also an ideal. If we think of this ideal in republican terms, in terms of resistance to domination through the practices of mutual accountability, and if we recall that democratic life invariably comes with loss, then those of us who inhabit a democratic political society will need to locate, and then cultivate, responses to loss that do not undermine our commitment to this ideal. Tolerance, one such response, is widely recognized and yet poorly theorized. Thomas Aquinas did not recognize it, but he did praise and endorse its act, toleration, and he does offer resources for bringing the virtue into focus and identifying some of the distinguishing features of its democratic variant.

中文翻译：

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民主、宽容、阿奎那

民主不仅仅是制度、法律和自由竞争的权威来源的集合。也是一种理想。如果我们从共和主义的角度考虑这个理想，从通过相互问责的做法抵抗统治的角度来看，如果我们回想民主生活总是伴随着损失，那么我们这些生活在民主政治社会中的人将需要定位，然后培养不破坏我们对这一理想的承诺的对损失的反应。宽容，一种这样的反应，被广泛认可，但理论不足。托马斯·阿奎那并不承认它，但他确实赞扬并认可了它的行为、宽容，并且他确实提供了资源，让人们关注美德并确定其民主变体的一些显着特征。