 If the philosophical tradition that suggests the empathy-altruism hypothesis is on the right track, and Batson believes it is, one would predict that when people feel empathy they will desire to help those who evoke the emotion, and thus be more inclined to engage in helping behavior than people who do not feel empathy. This does not mean that people will always engage in helping behavior when they feel empathy, since people may often have conflicting desires, and not all conflicts are resolved in favor of empathy’s urgings. Nor does it mean that when people feel little or no empathy they will not engage in helping behavior, since the desire to help can also be produced by a variety of processes in which empathy plays no role. But we should expect that typically people feeling empathy will be more likely to help than people who aren’t feeling empathy, and the stronger their feelings of empathy the more likely it is that they will engage in helping behavior.