Sentimentalism

Sentimentalism is used in different ways:

• Sentimentalism (philosophy), a theory in moral epistemology concerning how one knows moral truths; also known as moral sense theory
• Sentimentalism (literature), a form of literary discourse

It is not to be confused with sentimentality, which originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but whose current usage defines it as an appeal to shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason.