the article examines the morality of conflict in social theory in order to clarify the potential of the category for a normative approach in the investigation of concrete social situations with the help of law and justice. To do so, the article reconstructs the ideas of some central authors of social thought, within a framework that divides them in models of manifestation, models of the interaction and critical models. As a result, it is said that the task of the theory is, first of all, to describe and understand how actors mobilize their values, in clashes that they advance. But the theory may also contribute, in dialogue with the same actors on such values, to clarify the validity of the normative demands at stake, confronting situations where autonomy is being threatened by structural distortions or restrictions of context.
Social theory; conflict; morality; law; criticism