Everyday understanding takes empathy to be not just emotional mirroring with a specific etiology, but also a form of feeling for, or on behalf of, another. This article proposes an analysis of that for-relation. The analysis begins with the phenomenon of acting on behalf, which is then used as a template for an analysis of generic on behalfness, applicable to both action and emotion. The key to the relation turns out to be an agent’s espousal of a target’s goal, in light of which the agent acquires reasons for acting or feeling.
