Negotiation Games

Steven Brams, Ronald J. Quarles, David H. McElreath, Michelle E. Waldron, David Ethan Milstein

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134393152
• Edición: 2
• Categoría: Negocios y empresa
• Categoría: Negocios en general

The concept of negotiation is critical to coping with all manner of strategic problems that arise in the everyday dealings that people have with each other and organizations. Game theory illustrates this to the full and shows how these problems can be solved.This is a revised edition of a classic book and uses some wonderfully adroit case studies t

Chapter 1
Negotiations in the Bible

1.1.
Introduction

It may seem odd indeed to go back to the Bible for examples of negotiations. But, on reflection, there is no good reason why the beginning of Western recorded history should not contain instances of bargaining and arbitration. In fact, one can argue that the cast of characters in most of the great biblical narratives—God included— generally thought carefully about the goals and consequences of their actions. They often were skillful in negotiating agreements that were in their mutual interest.

To be sure, the Bible is a sacred document to millions of people; it expresses supernatural elements of faith that do not admit of any natural explanations. At the same time, however, some of the great narratives in the Bible do appear to be plausible reconstructions of real events.

I have chosen for analysis three stories in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament: (1) Cain’s murder of Abel and his bargaining with God not to be killed for his crime; (2) Rahab’s negotiation with Israelite spies in Jericho, whom she harbored in return for being saved when Jericho was destroyed; and (3) Solomon’s arbitration of a dispute between two women, both of whom claimed maternity of a baby. That I analyze negotiations in these stories in secular terms is not meant to diminish the religious significance or sacred value that they may have.

Some elementary game theory will be introduced both to aid the strategic exegesis of the stories and to illustrate the application of game theory to the analysis of negotiations. Although the popular notion of a game focuses on entertainment, in game theory players are not assumed to act frivolously. Quite the contrary: they are assumed to think carefully about their choices and the possible choices of other players. The outcome of a game—whether comic or tragic, mundane or momentous, fair or unfair—depends on individual choices. Yet because these choices may have ramifications not only for the individuals involved but also for an entire people, they are unmistakably political.

Game theory is a tool ideally suited for penetrating the complex decision-making situations often described in the Bible. Because its appplication requires the careful unraveling of a tangle of character motivations and their effects, it imposes a discipline on the study of these situations that is usually lacking in more traditional literary-historicaltheological analyses of the Bible.

The game theory in this chapter is supplemented by verbal explications that use ideas from game theory but not its formal apparatus. Indeed, in some instances a rote application of game-theoretic tools would be forced or silly; at those times I resort to a more informal analysis.

The three cases of biblical negotiation analyzed here are but a sampling of the biblical stories in which bargaining or arbitration figure prominently. Other cases that might have been included are

• Abraham’s bargaining with God to save the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if as few as fifty innocent inhabitants could be found, with haggling eventually bringing the number down to ten;
• the bargaining between the twins, Jacob and Esau, over the sale of Esau’s birthright (Esau was born first);
• the intercession of the twins’ mother, Rebekah, in the negotiations about who would receive the blessing of their father, Isaac;
• Laban’s disputed agreements with Jacob about the tasks that Jacob would have to perform in order to be able to marry Laban’s daughter, Rachel, who was beautiful and whom Jacob preferred to Laban’s older daughter, Leah;
• Joseph’s mercurial dealings with his brothers and his father, Jacob, which included both betrayal and reconciliation within the family;
• Moses’s bargaining with God first about assuming leadership of the Israelites, later about whether God would spare the Israelites after their idolatry at Mount Sinai, and finally about obtaining relief from the burdens of leadership;
• Jonah’s defiance and later acceptance of God’s command to warn Nineveh of its imminent doom, and then his angry confrontation with God after the city was spared;
• Esther’s delicate negotiations with King Ahasuerus, linking Haman’s conspiracy against the Jews to his seeming designs on her, in order to discredit Haman and then bring about his demise; and
• Satan and God’s bargaining about how Job would be tested.

I have used game theory in a previous work to analyze some of these conflicts—as well as the three analyzed in this chapter—though not with a specific focus on the negotiations between the disputing parties (Brams 1980).

Elementary game-theoretic concepts and analysis will be introduced in this chapter. In order to avoid introducing too much material too soon, however, I reserve for later chapters a discussion of more sophisticated concepts and more complex forms of analysis.

1.2.
Cain and Abel: Bargaining with God

After being expelled from the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve became parents first to Cain and then to Abel. Cain was a tiller of the soil and Abel a shepherd. The conditions for conflict immediately became apparent¹:

In the course of time, Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the soil; and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock. The LORD paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed. Cain was much distressed and his face fell. (Gen. 4:3–5)

Unlike the impersonal prohibition on eating from the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, God appears to meddle directly in the affairs of the brothers by playing favorites, naturally antagonizing the one not favored.

True, Cain’s offering was apparently inferior to Abel’s, because it was simply from the “fruit of the soil” (Gen. 4:3) but not, like Abel’s, the “choicest” (Gen. 4:4). Yet, if God was disappointed by its meagerness, He did not say so but instead ignored Cain’s offering. By contrast, God had not been silent about His distress with Adam and Eve’s transgressions.

It seems that God’s primary motive was less to chastise Cain than to stir up jealousy between the brothers—and then await the fireworks. If this was His goal, He was not to be disappointed.

As support for this position, consider God’s incredible question after refusing Cain’s offering and observing his anger:

Why are you distressed,
And why is your face fallen? (Gen. 4:6)

Without awaiting an answer, which I presume God knew and did not want to respond to, God offered a poetic message of hope and fear:

Surely, if you do right,
There is uplift.
But if you do not do right
Sin couches at the door;
Its urge is toward you,
Yet you can be its master. (Gen. 4:7)

Having issued this warning, God immediately observed the divine consequences of His provocation of Cain:

Cain said to his brother Abel [Ancient versions: “Come, let us go into the field”]…and when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him. (Gen. 4:8)

Next comes another incredible question from God, reminiscent of the rhetorical question He asked Adam (“Where are you?” [Gen. 3:9]) after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and tried to hide from God: “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen. 4:9). Cain’s memorable response is less than forthcoming: “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9).

This laconic answer in the form of a question, which I assume was uttered with some acerbity (the tone of Cain’s voice is obviously not known), gives us as much insight into Cain’s strategic calculations as it does into his shaky morality. First, there seems little doubt that his murder of Abel was premeditated, for he set upon Abel “in the field” (Gen. 4:8), to which, it seems, they journeyed together.² Second, warned by God of the presence of sin at his door, Cain cannot plead ignorance of the fact that his murder might have adverse consequences, even if their exact nature could not be foretold.

Seething with anger and jealousy over the favoritism shown Abel, and unable to strike out against God directly (even if he had wanted to), Cain did the next best thing—he murdered God’s apparent favorite. Under the circumstances, this response to God’s taunting from a terribly aggrieved man seems not at all irrational.

What is harder to understand is Cain’s reply about being his brother’s keeper. In my opinion, it can be read as a cleverly constructed challenge to God’s own morality in meddling in the affairs of the brothers.³ Not that Cain necessarily knew that God had fomented trouble to test Cain’s susceptibility to sin—and make punishment of his crime a precedent for others. Whoever was to blame, however, Cain felt deeply wronged and was driven to take revenge.

But how does one justify fratricide, and what can one do after the act to mitigate one’s punishment for the crime? Cain had at least three courses of action open to him:

1. Admit the murder.
2. Deny the murder.
3. Defend his morality.

Admittedly, the third course of action would seem hard to execute shamelessly, except when it is recalled that the conditions that led to the crime do not leave God with virtuous intent intact.

Whether one perfidy excuses another, the salient fact is that Cain did not think his act unjustified. Even if he did not question the purity of God’s motives, he could still perhaps defend himself by pleading no responsibility for his brother’s welfare.

Cain’s defense is actually more subtle than simply a plea of inculpability. He first says he does not know where his brother is. Could not this imply that God does or should know, and that He bears some responsibility for Abel, too? The notion that Abel is not Cain’s sole responsibility is then reinforced by Cain’s famous question.

This, in my opinion, is a brilliant defense, because it eloquently contrasts God’s responsibility and his own, implicitly suggesting that there may be questionable morality on both sides. God, in His response to Cain’s (unadmitted) crime and rhetorical defense, begins with His own rhetorical question, which He quickly follows with a stiff sentence for a tiller of the soil:

What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! Therefore, you shall be more cursed than the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth. (Gen. 4:10–12)

Acting as his own defense attorney, Cain responded to God’s sentence with a plea for mercy:

My punishment is too great to bear! Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on earth—anyone who meets me may kill me! (Gen. 4:13–14).

Note that the crux of Cain’s plaintive remonstration is that he might be killed, not that the sentence itself is unjust or inappropriate. Reminded of this consequence of His sentence, God finds it unpalatable and answers Cain by saying:

“I promise, if anyone kills Cain, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him.” And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who met him should kill him. (Gen. 4:15)

The reason, I believe, that God finds Cain’s death unpalatable is because only “a ceaseless wanderer on earth” (Gen. 4:12) can spread far and wide the message of God’s retribution for fratricide. If Cain were quickly dispatched, God’s great power—and even greater mercy in sparing the murderer’s life—would of course not get communicated to the world.

I postulate that God considered two strategies in response to Cain’s murder of Abel:

1. Kill Cain.
2. Punish Cain.

If Cain had either admitted his crime or denied it, I believe God would probably have chosen to kill Cain. Murder, especially of one’s brother, is too serious a crime to ignore or cover up. Moreover, the execution of the murderer would set an impressive precedent.

If there were extenuating circumstances, on the other hand, punishment short of death could be considered. But there was no serpent, as in the Adam and Eve story, that could be implicated and used as exculpation for Cain’s sin. The only possible exten...