This paper aims at challenging the perceived continuity between the underlying normativety of, on the one hand, the public and the private domains of social action and, on the other, the normativity of public and private law. As the argument goes, the underlying normative assumptions of the utilization of law (in general) by the political community do not overlap significantly with the broader normative assumptions embedded in each domain of social action. This would go a long way towards providing a framework within which the perceived (and often commended) movements towards a ‘publicization of private law’ or, conversely, towards a ‘privatization of public law’ could be understood.