 We can suppose that such agents will adopt devices to obviate the confusion. For instance, they’ll learn to say (as we do), “I’m Bing tomorrow.” Against that background, however, “I’m going to B,” “I want to A,” and so on are evidently similar devices, and of a piece with “I’m Bing tomorrow.” Each such locution carries a different sort of additional information. For instance, “I’m going to B” positions one as being in the very preliminary run-up phases of an action; when one says, “I’m going to B because I’m Aing,” one is giving a naive rationalization, but one which registers that the Bing phase of Aing has not yet arrived, even though the reason for the former is that it is part of the latter. Likewise, “I intend to A” places one merely at the planning phase of Aing; “I want to A,” allows that one may be at a pre-planning phase. Briefly, the function of these locutions is to preempt confusion by placing the actions that make up a naive rationalization in their temporal sequence. But once we see that that is their function, the temptation to construe them as invoking psychological states (intentions, desires and so on) is evidently misguided. Desires, in Thompson’s Sellarsian view, are a mistake on a par with sense-data; just as the sense-datum theorist treats a linguistic device for hedging one’s commitments (“It appears to be…”) as naming a psychological state (a mere appearance), so the belief-desire theorist of practical rationality is treating a linguistic device for sorting out the order of subsidiary actions (“…because I want to…”) as naming a motivating psychological state (a desire). 