Raymond G. Frey (; 1941–2012) was a professor of philosophy at

Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a Public university, public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized progr ...

, specializing in

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

and

legal philosophy Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

, and author or editor of a number of books. He was a noted critic of

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

Biography

Frey obtained his B.A. in philosophy in 1966 from

The College of William and Mary ''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...

, his M.A. in 1968 from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, and his D.Phil. in 1974 from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

– where his supervisor was

R. M. Hare Richard Mervyn Hare (21 March 1919 – 29 January 2002), usually cited as R. M. Hare, was a British moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. He subseque ...

– for a thesis on "Rules and Consequences as Grounds for Moral Judgment". Frey authored ''Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals'' (1980), ''Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide'' (1998, with Gerald Dworkin and

Sissela Bok Sissela Bok (born Myrdal; 2 December 1934) is a Swedish-born American philosopher and ethicist, the daughter of two Nobel Prize winners: Gunnar Myrdal who won the Economics prize with Friedrich Hayek in 1974, and Alva Myrdal who won the Nobel P ...

), and ''The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics'' (2011, with

Tom Beauchamp Tom Lamar Beauchamp III (December 2, 1939 – February 19, 2025) was an American philosopher. He specialized in the work of David Hume, moral philosophy, bioethics, and animal ethics. Beauchamp was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgetown ...

, eds.).

Criticism of animal rights

Frey was a critic of animal rights but as noted by David DeGrazia was one of five authors – along with

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...

, Tom Regan,

Mary Midgley Mary Beatrice Midgley (' Scrutton; 13 September 1919 – 10 October 2018) was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first b ...

, and Steve Sapontzis who had made significant philosophical contributions to the work of placing animals within

ethical theory Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

.DeGrazia, David
"The Moral Status of Animals and Their Use in Research: A Philosophical Review"
'' Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal''. Volume 1, Number 1, March 1991, pp. 48-70 Frey wrote from a preference utilitarian perspective, as does Singer. Preference utilitarianism defines an act as good insofar as it fulfills the preferences (interests) of the greatest number. In his early work, ''Interests and Rights'' (1980), Frey disagreed with Singer – who in his '' Animal Liberation'' (1975) wrote that the interests of nonhuman animals must be included when judging the consequences of an act – on the grounds that animals have no interests. Frey argued that interests are dependent on desire, and that one cannot have a desire without a corresponding belief. He argued further that animals have no beliefs because they are unable to comprehend the concept of a belief (that is, they are unable to hold a second-order belief: a belief about a belief), which he argues requires language: "If someone were to say, e.g. 'The cat believes that the door is locked,' then that person is holding, as I see it, that the cat holds the declarative sentence 'The door is locked' to be true; and I can see no reason whatever for crediting the cat or any other creature which lacks language, including human infants, with entertaining declarative sentences." He concludes that animals have no interests. Counter-arguments include that first-order beliefs may be held in the absence of second-order ones – that is, a non-human animal or human infant might hold a belief while failing to understand the concept of belief — and that human beings could not have developed language in the first place without some pre-verbal beliefs. The importance of Frey's ''Interests and Rights'', according to DeGrazia, lay in its rigorous treatment of the problem of animal minds and moral status. Tom Regan described Frey as a "unrepentant act-utilitarian" and wrote that "Frey does more than deny animals rights; he also denies them all but the faintest trace of mind. 'Sensations,' some pleasant, some painful, they can experience, but that is about it. They are barren of preferences, wants, and desires; they lack memory and expectation; and they are unable to reason, plan, or intend."Regan, Tom. (2004)
"The Case for Animal Rights"
University of California Press.

Selected publications

;Books *with Tom Beauchamp (eds.). ''The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics''. Oxford University Press, 2011 *with Christopher W. Morris (eds.). ''Value, Welfare, and Morality''. Cambridge University Press, 1994 *with Christopher W. Morris (eds.). ''Liability and Responsibility: Essays in Law and Morals''. Cambridge University Press, 1991 *''Rights, Killing and Suffering: Moral Vegetarianism and Applied Ethics''. Blackwell, 1985 *''Utility and Rights''. Blackwell, 1984. *''Rights, Killing and Suffering''. Blackwell, 1983 *''Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals''. Oxford University Press, 1980 ;Papers *"Medicine, Animal Experimentation, and the Moral Problem of Unfortunate Humans," ''Social Philosophy and Policy'' 13 (1996): 118-211 *"What has sentiency to do with the possession of rights?" in David A. Paterson and Richard D. Ryder (eds.), ''Animals' Rights: A Symposium''. Centaur Press, 1979.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frey, R. G. 1941 births 2012 deaths 21st-century American philosophers American ethicists American political philosophers Bowling Green State University faculty College of William & Mary alumni Critics of animal rights American philosophers of law Utilitarians University of Virginia alumni