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Ethics refers to both the uniqueness of the subject and the subject’s relation with a group that stipulates customs and social values. These two features could be in conflict in the framework of social practices, causing paradoxical and conflicting representations. Can ethics help to sort out these issues? An original structure, the experimental Comité Départemental d’Éthique created by the département of Yvelines, will attempt to provide an answer. This committee addresses situations brought to it by social workers who have come to a conceptual impasse. The committee draws up written advice, providing a transitional forum of thinking. Based on procedures designed by this committee, this paper addresses rediscovering the polysemy of words and finding solutions to paradoxes.