In a recent article, Brian McLaughlin (2012) agrees that reason explanations are teleological, explaining an action in terms of a purpose, goal or aim for which it was performed.  He also agrees that these purposive explanations are not species of causal explanation. However, he rejects the view that these same explanations are grounded on claims about the agent's intentions in acting, and he thereby sets aside the issues, sketched above, about purpose, intention, and their role in rationalizations.  McLaughlin takes the following position: if (i) an agent F-ed for the purpose of G-ing, then, (ii) in F-ing, the agent was thereby trying to G. To assert (i) is to offer an explanation of the action (the F-ing) in terms of the agent's trying to G. Moreover, if (i) is true then the act of F-ing is identical with or is a proper part of the agent's attempt to G.  Thus, statement (ii) offers what purports to be, in effect, a mere redescription of the act of F-ing.  Assuming Hume's maxim that if an event E causes an event E′, then E and E′ must be wholly distinct, McLaughlin maintains that purposive explanations of actions are constitutive and not causal in character.