The leading argument in this thesis concerns the moral aspects of work and unemployment, in an attempt to relate the insertion of the individual in his/her social context with his/her personal inner dimension. We started our research conducting some field work with university students, where we aimed to investigate the values and problems of young people today. The result of our investigation pointed to the need for a better understanding of society in the line of the proposed theme. The constant dialogue with the empirical results - both under the form of quantitative data and of discursive elements, resulting from the answers to questionnaires and interviews - directed the theoretic framework in search of authors whose concepts and propositions would throw a light over such field findings. Thus, besides the pioneer scientific study of morality conducted by Piaget, which was the starting point of this framework, other authors such as Smith, Elias, Rawls, Habermas and Lewin have shed some light over this investigation path. Furthermore, the answers from the university students also, and especially, pointed to the need for structuring the key points of the research - citizenship and self-esteem (later, self- interest) - that would not only be compatible with an actual interpretation of the modern democratic society, but that, above all, would integrate these concepts as counter-faces of the inter-subjective relations of the individual/youngster.The result of this challenge for integration is our proposal of a conception of the individual, in the line of the topological psychology of Kurt Lewin. Thus, theconcept of representation of the- individual-in-the-world - representação de si-nomundo - seems to satisfy our attempt of understanding the issue of work/unemployment, and perhaps of contributing to future approaches that also aim to relate the personal and contextual dimensions of the individual.