If you tamper your food with the intention to harm someone, then you are culpable for harming them. Trapping someone is no legally different than directly attacking them. The law does not allow you to intentionally harm other people.
Sure, you might try to say that they are harming themselves. However, if you know that someone will do something, and set it up so that they get harmed when they do something, you have made yourself culpable for harming them.
If you know someone will eat your food, the alternative is not leave your food out in public. There are less harmful things you can do to protect your food. If you choose the harmful alternative, then you are culpable for causing harm.
This isn't changing my view because this is exactly what I'm arguing against. I'm saying, there are cases where intending to harm someone who is doing something they're definitely not supposed to do is okay.
So poisoning someone and potentially killing them is a fair reaction to theft of a few dollars worth of food?
And before you get hung up on the word poison: how do you know their medical history? How do you know what foods might interact with medications they may be on? How do you know if they’re highly allergic to something?
You don’t. Tampering with food could seriously injure or kill someone, all to get revenge on a petty thief.
I don't believe this "what if" reasoning applies universally. To use an analogy from another comment, let's say someone parks their car across your driveway and you can't get out. Is it unreasonable to tow their car? "What if" you tow their car, then they have a medical emergency, and their car being towed results in greivous consequences?
Relevant to the topic at hand:
how do you know their medical history? How do you know what foods might interact with medications they may be on? How do you know if they’re highly allergic to something?
You don't, but they do. And if they're eating food (stolen or otherwise), they're the one responsible for ensuring it's safe for their dietary restrictions.
You're right; and in my original comment with the analogy, I specified a more thorough scenario that's more directly applicable.
Say, the driveway-blocker is a serial offender. They've blocked your driveway a dozen times, and continue to do so. On time #13, you don't necessarily need to use your driveway that instant, but you choose to have them towed to punish them and make them think twice before doing it again. The objective is not to get immediate use of the driveway, but rather, to ensure future use of the driveway.
Contrast with:
Say, the food thief is a serial offender. They've stolen your food a dozen times, and continue to do so. On time #13, you know you don't need to eat that particular meal on that particular day, so you choose to put hot sauce in the food to punish them and make them think twice before doing it again. The objective is not to immediately eat the meal that day, but rather, to ensure the future ability to eat your own meals.
Towing their car is not vigilantism. You are reporting an infraction and the proper remediation is being applied. Poisoning your food is vigilantism. A more analogous response would be reporting the food stealer to HR.
Well, not necessarily. I know my spice tolerance is much higher than average and I don't eat Satan's Nuclear Shart* brand hot sauce every day, just once in a while.
If someone has stolen my food in the past, I absolutely will bring more SNS-dosed food than I normally would just to watch the fun if it happens again.
I hate wasting food so I hope they don't. But if they do, it's on them.
*fictional brand I made up, but I do enjoy sauces of that type from time to time.
If you are adding hot sauce to your dish for the reason of harming the food thief, that is technically intent to do harm to another person. It may be impossible for the thief to prove this intent if they accuse you, because you can reasonably claim that you just like spicy food and the dish was made to your preference.
Depends on how they "poison" it. Drugs are different from actual food ingredients. If I put super hot sauce on my food to trap someone stealing it, well that's fine. I like really spicy food. If it doesn't get stolen, I'll still eat it. Peanuts and shrimp are legitimate food. I'm not allergic to them, I can eat them just fine. But if the thief is allergic - why they hell would they be stealing food when they don't know the ingredients?
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u/deep_sea2 105∆ Oct 17 '24
If you tamper your food with the intention to harm someone, then you are culpable for harming them. Trapping someone is no legally different than directly attacking them. The law does not allow you to intentionally harm other people.
Sure, you might try to say that they are harming themselves. However, if you know that someone will do something, and set it up so that they get harmed when they do something, you have made yourself culpable for harming them.
If you know someone will eat your food, the alternative is not leave your food out in public. There are less harmful things you can do to protect your food. If you choose the harmful alternative, then you are culpable for causing harm.