  However, while Bratman’s arguments do seem devastating for the desire-belief view of intention, they are not necessarily as persuasive against the Cognitivist’s reduction of intentions to beliefs. For example, consider again the norm of intention consistency, which convicts Mike of error when he intends to go to the game and also intends to refrain from going. Above we suggested that this norm could not be explained by appealing to norms on desire, since it is permissible to have inconsistent desires. But now imagine that the intention to F just is (or necessarily involves) the belief that one will F. Then intending to F, and intending to refrain from F-ing, will entail that one has contradictory beliefs. So if the Cognitivist can help himself to this constitutive claim about the link between intending and believing, he appears to have an attractive explanation of the norm requiring intention consistency. The status of this constitutive claim, and of the plausibility of deriving other norms (e.g. means-end coherence) from it, is a matter of dispute (see Ross 2008). Of course, if Bratman was right to contend that one can intend to F without believing that she will F, then the Cognitivist picture of intention seems doomed from the get-go.