  Seen in another light, then, the conclusion that intentions are psychologically real and irreducible to simpler states may be vindicated by way of a critique of the motivations for Cognitivism. In this vein, some philosophers (notably Sarah Paul (2009)) have influentially argued that the Cognitivist is committed to an unattractive picture of the justification of intention formation. An intention is, according to the Cognitivist, just a belief of something like the following form: ‘I will now F’. But as Paul points out, before I form an intention I typically lack sufficient reason for thinking that I will perform the action intended—if I have sufficient reason to believe that I will F, then I needn’t form the intention to F at all. It seems to follow that intending constitutively involves forming a belief for which I lack sufficient evidence. Indeed, it appears that the only sort of consideration potentially counting in favor of the belief that I will F is my preference that this proposition turns out true. So intending appears to be a form of wishful thinking on the Cognitivist picture of intentions. This can be seen as a troubling result, given that we ordinarily regard wishful thinking as deeply irrational and intending as perfectly rational. [It should be noted that Velleman (1989) embraces this idea; he thinks it sufficient to justify the rationality of intentions that they will be rationally supported once they are in place. Paul is arguing more directly against Setiya (2008), who does not regard Velleman’s faith in post hoc justification as sufficient for justifying the formation of an intention.] Paul takes this and other problems for the Cognitivist to establish that intentions are distinctive practical attitudes, incapable of reduction to the theoretical attitude of belief. So conceived, this critique of Cognitivism is continuous with Bratman’s critique of Davidson’s early reductive picture of intention.