The purpose of this article is, from the philosophical-historical framework, to con-duct a review of public ethics and legitimacy in the context of the construction of public and private space beginning with Greek-Latin societies until reaching con-temporary positions, in there is a crisis of legitimacy of the State against its gover-ned generated by corruption. In response to this crisis of legitimacy in government, the space of the public has been occupied by movements of the Organized Civil Society, which question and put pressure on the work of traditional public insti-tutions, and seek to incorporate them into these formal spaces. legitimacy to the government. This forces a rethinking of the values of contemporary public ethics.