 Feminists argue that pregnancy, birth, and mothering reveal important features of the self, even for humans who do not have these experiences themselves. Two overlapping philosophical approaches—an ethics of care and an ethics of eros—have revalued the significance of the mother in ways that bear on the issue of the self. Both traditions emphasize that pregnancy and/or mothering reveal that agency is frequently co-constituted and dynamic. The care tradition varies among those who aim to value dependency work and/or reconceptualize autonomy so that autonomy and dependency are compatible (Gilligan 1982 and 1987; Ruddick 1989; Kittay 1999; Held 2006; Lindemann 2014). Care ethics emphasizes the value of care work and character virtues that reflect vulnerability. An ethics of eros draws from traditions of “othermothering” and emancipatory discourses of generative libidinal drives and/or cultivating a social eros of connection (Collins 1990; Irigaray 1993; Willett 1995, 2001, 2008, 2014, 2019; Lorde 2007). Social bonds may reflect a dynamic of kinship, political solidarity, or community engagement outside the nuclear family paradigm (Collins 1990; Nzegwu 2006). This tradition of eros foregrounds complicated modes of interdependency that spiral out of the autonomy/dependency binary and emphasize thick networks of social belongings. An ethics of eros emphasizes the revitalizing affects of preconscious energy and connectedness, and their creative potential for political subversion and communal practices. Here, the self is a multilayered phenomenon with a dynamic set of roles and interconnected desires.