The Role of Motivational Force and Intention in First-Person Beliefs

Beliefs are directed toward their content, i.e., they are intentional states, and play a causal role in behaviour. In fact, intentionality and the causal role of mental states in behaviour are the two distinctive and fundamental features computational psychology attributes to the human mind. The idea according to which, certain inner episodes are the causes of overt behaviour is crucial for both the folk psychology of desires and beliefs, and the representational computational theory of mind. The ability of mental states to cause actions rests on their local physical properties, or on their “formal characteristics”, in Jerry Fodor’s terms. However, people’s behaviour besides being deter-mined by causes, is also determined by the reasons people have for behav-ing in a particular way. Beliefs, therefore, have a motivational power, be-sides a causal role in behaviour. In what follows I will try to argue that first-person beliefs (hence-forth FPBs) have an essentially indexical nature and that only such kinds of beliefs have a genuine motivational force in behaviour. The content of FPBs is referred to their bearer in an essential way. Since these kinds of beliefs instantiate a two-place relation between the bearer and her intentional con-tent, and they are both essentially indexical and endowed with motivational force, therefore, essentiality seems a necessary condition, making beliefs capable of having motivational force.