R. G. Frey s Moral Standing, The Value Of Lives, And...

The focus of this paper will be R. G. Frey’s passage in â€Å"Moral Standing, the Value of Lives, and Speciesism†. The intended objection of the focus will be two moral theories, Kantianism and Act Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism being the rebuttal of the Kantianism view on the moral issue at hand. In this passage the central conclusion is that the value of life, whether that be humans or animals is contributed to the quality of life, the quality is related to its richness being related to the life’s capacity of enrichment. (LaFollette, Hugh. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. Print.) Frey gives support to this conclusion by recognizing that not all individuals from a moral group are individuals that have lives with equal value or significance within both humans and animals. (LaFollette, Hugh. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. Print.) In support this statement, Frey claims there are different moral standings of most human lives. Some examples were an infant with disadvantages, a disabled person and elderly person with a severe case of Alzheimer’s disease. Frey then supports these claims by saying that if we agree with these claims it is clear that we are not using species membership to determine the value and moral standing of an individual but instead as the quality of an individual’s life. An additional support of the central conclusion is that this view allows for animals to have more value than a human