Second, public reason is best viewed not as a process of reasoning among citizens but as a regulative principle imposing limits upon how individuals, institutions, and agencies ought to reason about public matters. The limits of public reason are set by a “political conception of liberalism.” In Rawls’s words: “The point of the ideal of public reason is that citizens are to conduct their fundamental discussions within the framework of what each regards as a political conception of justice based on values that the others can reasonably be expected to endorse and each is, in good faith, prepared to defend that conception so understood. This means that each of us must have, and be ready to explain, a criterion of what principles and guidelines we think other citizens (who are also free and equal) may reasonably be expected to endorse along with us.” Rawls cites his own elaboration of the political values of liberalism as an example of such criteria, while admitting that there will be divergence as to the “most appropriate political conception.”