An Analysis of Wininger's Views on Maternal Love

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It seems as though the only kind of love that is genuinely unconditional, asking nothing in return and sometimes getting nothing in return, is maternal love. Otto Wininger’s description of maternal love is that of an instinctive and natural impulse. He reaches his conclusion solely by comparing a human mother to that of an animal. However Wininger’s analogy that “maternal love cannot be truly represented as resting on moral grounds” is not plausible, for human mothers are very well able to reason and make decisions rather based on their own individual morals. Wininger’s statement not only rests on the comparison of women and animals but it further ignores the reality of today’s society. As there are utmost abortions, children given up for adoptions and those children who are neglected, abused and even killed by the hands of their own mothers. Whether these actions are rational or not they involve a set of moral reasoning.

Maternal love appears to be both of human and animal nature however a human mother and an animal can not be comparable for even an act of love from a human mother ...

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