William Frankena

Frankena's father and mother immigrated to the U.S. as teenagers, in 1892 and 1896 respectively, from Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands. William Frankena was the middle one of three children. He was born in Manhattan, Montana, grew up in small Dutch communities in Montana and western Michigan, and spoke West Frisian and Dutch. In primary school, his given name, Wiebe, was Anglicized to William. Throughout his life, his family and friends called him Bill. His mother died when he was nine years old. He graduated from Holland Christian High School in Holland, MI, in 1926. After farming, his father, Nicholas A. Frankena (1875–1955), devoted the later decades of his life to elected office in Zeeland, MI, where he was mayor, and to service as an elder in the Christian Reformed Church in North America, which was founded by Calvinist Dutch immigrants. In 1930, Frankena received a B.A. with majors in English and philosophy from Calvin College, a liberal arts college of the Christian Reformed Church. At Calvin, Frankena studied with William Harry Jellema (1893–1982). Frankena then earned an M.A. from the University of Michigan (1931), where the Department of Philosophy included C. Harold Langford (1895–1964), Dewitt H. Parker (1885–1949), and Roy Wood Sellars (1880–1973). Next Frankena earned a second M.A. and a Ph.D. (1937) at Harvard University. He studied with C. I. Lewis, Ralph Barton Perry, and Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard, and with G. E. Moore and C. D. Broad at the University of Cambridge in England while he did Ph.D. research. His doctoral dissertation, which focused on Moore's work, was entitled "Recent Intuitionism in British Ethics." Frankena became well known in the profession with his first published paper, "The Naturalistic Fallacy", Mind, 1939. During World War II, Frankena taught American history at the University of Michigan. Frankena met his future wife, Sadie, when they were students at Calvin College. In 1928–29, Sadie was president of Calvin's forensic (oration and debate) club and editor-in-chief of Calvin's literary review, Chimes; Frankena was business manager of the club and associate editor of the review. (Prism, Calvin College, 1929) He and Sadie were married for 44 years, until Sadie's death in 1978. He was an avid birder, and is survived by two sons, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Many Michigan undergraduates were introduced to philosophy in the popular, historically based course taught by Frankena and his close friend Paul Henle. For nearly his entire career, Frankena did most of his philosophical reading and writing at home at a desk made circa 1870. When he wrote a philosophical paper, he prepared a detailed outline, including very abbreviated versions of all points and cites, before writing the paper longhand using a mechanical pencil. He never used a typewriter or computer. Frankena greatly valued his many conversations with other moral philosophers throughout the U.S. and western Europe. William K. Frankena's philosophical papers are in the collection of the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. His philosophy books are in the collection of the Tanner Philosophy Library in Angell Hall at the University of Michigan.

While he was chair of the Michigan Philosophy Department, Frankena devoted a considerable portion of his time to service to the university and the philosophy profession, and became known for his role in defending academic freedom during the McCarthy era. After that period, he had more time to publish books and articles. In his 1963 book Ethics, Frankena clarified various fundamental concepts in ethics and value theory. He emphasized the distinction between the good, which concerns any items that contribute positively to someone's life, and the right, which concerns the moral evaluation of actions and policies. Based on this distinction, he contrasted the ethical theories of teleology and deontology. According to teleological theories, an action is right if it produces the most good, meaning that the right is directly determined by the good. Frankena argues that deontological theories are different by asserting that some actions are inherently right, regardless of the outcomes they produce. He further explored the various meanings of the term good, the diverse types of value, and the sources of intrinsic value. During his career Frankena was chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association (APA), chair of the Council for Philosophical Studies, president of the APA's Western Division, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Education, and a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Fellowship. Frankena was also active on Phi Beta Kappa Society committees. In 1974, he delivered the APA's prestigious Paul Carus Lectures on "Three Questions about Morality." Calvin College named him a Distinguished Alumnus in 1984. Frankena received the University of Michigan's Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, was Roy Wood Sellars Distinguished Collegiate Professor of Philosophy, and was the first College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Distinguished Senior Faculty Lecturer.

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