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This paper examines the emergence of a particular intellectual configuration in the social sciences during the 1980s, characterized by a non-reductionist approach to the shattering of normative reference points—in terms of society and action as well as knowledge. It identifies and discusses the ways that this configuration was modulated by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s Laboratoire des Cités and by the sociology of “regimes of action.” Observing the importance of references to “goods per se” in public debates—a manner of defending a position through objectives that are worthwhile in themselves—the author develops a sociology of powers, demonstrating how they target goods of this type while at the same time depending on the incomplete nature of controls or trials capable of ensuring the moral dimension of politics. Finally, the paper outlines a way of understanding the historical dynamic of trials and powers within this context, and of shedding light upon changes in critical meaning.