In France, moral and civic education was introduced by the 2013 law reforming French schools. Its aim was to provoke questioning of values. However, how may we differentiate between individuals' values and the common values underpinning the schools of the French republic other than by making a distinction between deontologically inspired ethics aimed at the faraway horizon of universality and ethics which results from a specific position? This article aims to deal with the subject's two axes of construction — the first is vertical and inherited from the secular ideal of the Enlightenment while the second is influenced by subjectivity. The axiological construction of a pupil is effectively fuelled by his or her sensibility, the bedrock of moral reflexivity. The question remains to be answered regarding training teachers to implement innovative systems and above all to carry out a hermeneutic interpretation of a professional identity which cannot and must not neglect ethics.