Politikerns (o)etiska beslut -en fallstudie av Olof Johanssons avgång som miljöminister

Abstract

Central in this paper is Olof Johansson, Swedish minister for the environment, there the focus lye on his resignation from this duty which occurred in 1994. This essay is a case study there I?m trying to identify which ethical reasons which lye behind his resignation. The relationship between politics and ethics is an interesting aspect to investigate and my ambition with this paper is to analyze that relationship in this specific case. The analysis has its focus built on the occurrence of role conflicts and the making of ethical decisions. Aspects like personal ethics versus organisational ethics, objective responsibility versus subjective responsibility etc. are all issues which can cause an ethical conflict. This often causes a dilemma for political actors and they are thereby in their profession forced to make a choice between these different loyalties. The ethical deliberation of Olof Johansson which led to his resignation is the main issue for my analysis. Throughout this essay I try to understand the moral conflict caused by demands from different types of loyalties which were impossible for Olof Johansson to combine.