This article examines the political thinking of university students at the Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE in specific situations of political action. To this end, the theoretical background of pragmatic sociology, as proposed by authors Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, is utilized. In accordance with this approach, a situational study was conducted with students from various university courses, which enabled us to capture the asymmetry in their experiences of political action and how these have been configured to justify decisions of a political nature. The study’s hypothesis suggests that students who base their political thinking on the civic order of justification tend to exhibit higher levels of visible political participation. To test the hypothesis, a quantitative survey containing both closed and open-ended questions was administered, which allowed, on the one hand, an in-depth statistical analysis to locate the political actions associated with each city of justification, and, on the other hand, an interpretative analysis according to the moral justifications of the respondents and the forms of political action most frequent among students according to the orders of worth posed by pragmatic sociology. The results showed that the civic order, focused on the common good and social justice, is the main “cite” justifying the political action of students in the context of the last elections held in Ecuador in 2025. However, although students mobilize multiple orders of worth, plurality has not guaranteed greater political participation. This fragmentation has enabled the observation of various reactive or eclectic forms of political participation or action associated with different orders.