On Religious Good Deeds from the Perspective of Game Theory—Beginning with Zilu Accepting the Cow

Long, long ago, the state of Lu once had a law: if someone was reduced to slavery abroad, then anyone who ransomed them could be reimbursed upon returning home.

Once, Confucius's disciple Zigong ransomed a man of Lu. Lu wished to reimburse him, but he declined and would not accept.

Confucius said: You have done wrong in this matter, because by acting thus, no one will again be willing to ransom men of Lu.

Another time, Zilu encountered a person drowning, rescued him, and the man, thanking Zilu, gave him a cow; Zilu accepted it.

When Confucius heard this he was very pleased, saying: "By acting thus, the people of Lu will surely be brave in rescuing the drowning."

Because Zigong declined reimbursement, he himself gained fame and benefit, yet he also raised the moral standard.

Anyone passing through abroad who saw a man of Lu reduced to slavery could have conveniently rescued him, returned home for reimbursement, and obtained a reward—yet would also worry that by doing so he might be accused of immorality and greed, since Zigong himself had not taken the money.

Merely discussing it this way would seem somewhat pale and unconvincing; we can introduce game theory for examination.

From the perspective of game theory, every participant will strive to maximize gains. For later participants in this matter, each event can be treated as a repeated game.

Thus, after Lu originally established this law, the following situation would form (assuming also that not rescuing would not bring blame):

Reputation / Money	Reimbursed
Rescue	1, 0
Do not rescue	0, 0

Let 1 represent gain and −1 represent loss; the maximizing strategy is the positive one.

One can see that rescuing not only allows reimbursement with money intact, but also gains reputation. What is more, under the premise of being able to reimburse, meeting someone and not rescuing would seem far too bad, with the risk of being blamed and thus losing reputation.

So rescuing is the optimal strategy—it will stimulate more people to rescue Lu people.

However, once Zigong's precedent of declining reimbursement to win reputation appeared, the situation became complex. When facing whether to rescue, one encounters the following scenario:

Reputation / Money	Reimbursed	Not reimbursed
Rescue	0, 0	1, −1
Do not rescue		0, 0

If one rescues and accepts reimbursement, reputation might be damaged—set its gain at −1; since money is not lost with reimbursement, that counts as 0. If one rescues without reimbursement, although reputation can be gained, money might be lost. If one does not rescue, naturally there is neither reputation nor money involved.

Here, because reimbursement is only possible (rather than automatic), it becomes this kind of situation:

If you rescue, you face a dilemma: either lose reputation, or spend money to buy reputation.

Here someone may object that some people rescue without seeking reward—of course this exists. But those who would rescue would rescue whether or not this reimbursement law existed.

Lu established this law precisely hoping that, on this basis, more helpers who would rescue Lu people would appear.

And the outcome of Zigong's behavior is that this law loses the effect it originally intended to have.

So Confucius rebuked Zigong, saying that after this was done, no one would again ransom Lu people stranded abroad.

Then why did Confucius praise Zilu? Zilu was first of all a rough warrior, yet very clever and extremely perceptive of human hearts. Confucius once praised him: "Judging a case from only one side's statement—perhaps only Zhongyou [Zilu] can do that."

So for Zilu's game we can set out the following table:

Reputation / Money	Accept reward	Decline reward
Rescue	1, 1	1, 0
Do not rescue		−1, 0

From this game structure we can see that after rescuing, accepting the reward is Zilu's optimal choice.

Likewise, among later participants this can again be treated as a repeated game. Even if possible rewards are viewed as expectations, it still leads people to think that if they rescue, they can obtain generous returns—possibly both reputation and reward.

However, many later people understood this very shallowly and rebuked Zilu for greed. Modern people, for instance, offer examples like: when a great flood occurs and someone drowns, others fish the body out and, waiting for someone to claim it, demand a high price at identification—that is immoral; therefore Zilu accepting the cow is also immoral.

What must be noted here: holding a corpse hostage for money is tantamount to extortion, whereas Zilu received a gift.

When Zilu rescued the man he did not first demand a high reward; the gift was an act of gratitude from the rescued person afterward.

There is also an opposing line of argument: Zilu was praised for accepting a reward, yet Zigong was rebuked by Confucius for declining reimbursement—what place does that leave for altruistic charitable acts that seek no return?

This doubt arises from conflating the backgrounds of Zigong and Zilu's actions: Zigong failed to accept reimbursement he should have accepted, which could lead later people not to rescue; whereas Zilu's act was accepting a reward when a reward should be accepted, which leads later people to rescue more.

Zilu is the "gift recipient" in the gifting act carried out by the rescued party.

Whereas in charitable acts, the philanthropist is the giver, carrying out an act of giving—neither declining what one should receive, nor being gifted by others.

Drawing out this flow makes it clearer.

Here the beneficiary's reward—whether choosing to give to charity in return or directly rewarding the philanthropist—can promote charitable acts.

In reality one often encounters this situation: a philanthropist has funded many children in poor mountain villages, yet most recipients feel no gratitude; some even think this is only what others ought to do, and so take it for granted. Quite a few, having been supported through study and work, have never even uttered a simple sincere thank-you to the donor.

Thus a virtuous cycle cannot form.

Behavior like Zilu's receiving a gifted cow, while able to stimulate extra charitable participation, is fragile—because these additional participants will usually stop their charitable behavior once they discover it yields no return.

Fortunately, in reality large numbers of people still do good deeds. Most who do charity can achieve "bestowing kindness without hoping for return"—they simply feel they ought to do it, and so they do it. This is highly praiseworthy.

If one considers Zilu accepting the cow to be wrong behavior, then even disregarding that the act of rescuing is itself a form of expenditure, the following situation would form:

Reputation / Money / Emotion	Accept reward	Decline reward
Rescue	−1, 1, −1	1, 0, −1
Do not rescue		0, 0, 0

If the psychological influence is extracted, it becomes:

Emotion	Accept reward	Decline reward
Rescue	−1	−1
Do not rescue		0

That is to say, if you do not rescue, no emotional problem arises; but if you do rescue, emotional problems appear instead.

If we assume the public's moral consciousness is somewhat higher—that not rescuing produces guilt—then the situation is still:

Emotion	Accept reward	Decline reward
Rescue	−1	−1
Do not rescue		−1

This still is not enough to make people form the idea of rescuing. What is the actual state of this in reality?

Whether of ordinary moral level or somewhat higher moral level, even when seeing someone who needs rescuing, people will merely act as "onlookers in the crowd."

In guiding public behavior, one must consider the influence of fame and fortune. The pursuit of fame and fortune can outweigh psychological influence—this is the way of governing the world.

Religion, however, adopts another means: changing people's thoughts in order to promote the arising of positive behavior.

For orthodox Eastern religions, most hold that doing good deeds accumulates merit (gongde), and failing to rescue when one could is a sin. This merit thus generates value within the religion; this value can be realized, while worldly wealth is external to the body and unimportant—not brought at birth, not taken at death. Under the guidance of such doctrine, the following situation arises:

Merit	Accept reward	Decline reward
Rescue	0	1
Do not rescue		−1

Because merit exists, rescuing without seeking reputation or monetary reward becomes the optimal choice. This means that for orthodox religious practitioners, traditional fame and fortune themselves lose their effect. But by analogy one finds that any system founded on merit-keeping still cannot escape utilitarianism—because the masses themselves are utilitarian.

Yet there is a settled rule in this world: wherever there is utilitarianism, problems will arise. Ideals are always beautiful; reality is always unsatisfying. Wherever there is utilitarianism, fraud will appear—just like many exhortation-to-good books: though flying the banner of encouraging good, their contents are mostly exaggerated and absurd, often full of intimidation. Though named as tempting people toward good, in fact they delude the masses. Typical examples are works like Yuli Baochao (Jade Register Precious Scroll) and Liaofan's Four Lessons—all representatives of this kind of hypocritical good. Though claiming to exhort to good, their actual purpose is to smuggle in private goods and deceive the populace. Therefore in orthodox Taoist lineages, what is advocated is "wu wei" (non-action). Why "wu wei"? This is highly nuanced. Heaven and earth produce the myriad things and let them grow, yet claim no credit. Taoism holds that man models himself on earth and earth on heaven—so heaven and earth are models for learning. Hence people are taught not to be bound by fame and fortune. Wu wei means having nothing one is acting for—doing something not because of some result one can obtain; it is "though spoken of as attaining the Dao, in reality nothing is attained." Yet although nothing is attained, virtue (de) is produced within this non-attainment—because virtue must arise from emptiness/nothingness. Why must virtue arise from nothingness? Water has the virtue of water; fire has the virtue of fire. Its virtue is its characteristic that differentiates it from the myriad things. Because of these characteristics it is regarded as water—not because it is water that it has these characteristics. Cultivating the Dao also speaks to this. So Taoism emphasizes being free of all constraints, yet not completely following every whim—for if so, one becomes controlled by desires and is no longer carefree and at ease. Thus in Taoism one ordinarily does not speak of doing good deeds to accumulate merit; yet within the religion, doing good and accumulating virtue is often discussed. These two are not contradictory: the religion serves an educative purpose and has its place, while Taoist thought frees people from utilitarian bondage. Taoism does not depart from Taoist thought—the subtlety between them must be carefully experienced before one can taste its true wonder.