 A main strength of sentimentalism is the apparent ease with which it can explain how our moral attitudes typically motivate us. Since moral attitudes are expressions of the affective rather than the cognitive sides of our nature, there is nothing puzzling about how our desires and aversions, likes and dislikes, approvings and disapprovings, can play a motivational role. Rationalism, by contrast, is frequently charged with being unable to explain the connection between morality and motivation. On the rationalist account, it seems, it must be possible to know what is right or wrong and not care in the least.