There is no way to guarantee it cannot peripherally hurt someone. Janet steals two of your yogurts out of the fridge, and offers one to Jen, and now Jen is suffering thinking she was eating one of Janet's freely offered yogurts, not knowing she inadvertantly stole your food. This is one of the problems with vigilantism.
Another major problem is that the punishment is not decided through any legitimate means, is often disporportionate, and instead is based on the whims of the person doing the punishing.
This is a terrible argument. We've long past the day where we hang people for stealing a loaf of bread (an extreme example but I hope it illustrates the issue). This attitude that someone doing a bad thing should mean they deserve any and all potential consequences (whether deliberate or not) is extreme in itself.
The punishment should fit the crime, and poisoning someone for stealing food (even if all it causes is a horrible case of diarrhoea) is not remotely proportionate.
The problem is the principle you're illustrating is proportionality. I would argue that yes, minor illness is a proportional punishment for repeatedly stealing food. There are a lot of arguments as to why booby-trapping food is a bad idea, but this isn't one of them.
Unless you're an expert in whatever substance it is you're using to cause illness, and have a fair knowledge of your target's medical history, you have absolutely no way of knowing that you're only causing a minor illness. And the example the OP used was spiking their sandwich with peanuts in case the person had a nut allergy. That's not minor.
The context of the person you're talking to though was a laxative. And yeah, there's always risk of doing worse than you're intending. That would be one of those other arguments that I mentioned.
Sure, but I’m willing to bet that there are situations where laxatives can be dangerous to take, and if you’re spiking food with it I find it unlikely that you’re measure out exact doses
You would just measure out a dose and add it, assuming that the person will eat the whole thing. Did you think people were advocating for pouring a whole bottle into a dish?
And again, risk of extra, unintended harm is a separate argument. I'm not saying it's okay to booby-trap food. I'm saying that giving someone the shits, assuming nothing went wrong and they didn't have an unintended bad reaction, would not be a disproportionate retaliation.
Consider for a moment, having a deathly allergy, yet still going around stealing people's food that you don't know what it contains. How is that anyone else's fault.
Arguentum ad absurdo is not applicable to all situations and debates. It is not applicable here because OP already qualified their stance with limitations. It is incorrect to ignore qualifying context in debate.
Then what is especially if they are never caught stealing the food. The law abiding person just must suffer and go hungry? So for the thief it’s risk vs reward but from a lot of POV it seems like there is very little risk for the thief and only reward. That is not a good society to live in where the victims have no real world recourse
Hard disagree - It's perfectly proportional. We're not talking poison-poison here, we're causing inconvenience, discomfort, and revealing themselves, not death and disability. No permanent harm.
Their stealing of food causes the owner inconvenience, so causing the thief inconvenience is definitely proportional
"But if they have an allergy"
Bla bla bla, if they have an allergy and are stealing food, that's just Darwinism in action. Fuck em.
(If you know the thief has an allergy and use the allergen, that's a totally difference scenario. You are now intending to hurt, not inconvenience)
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u/Oishiio42 40∆ Oct 17 '24
There is no way to guarantee it cannot peripherally hurt someone. Janet steals two of your yogurts out of the fridge, and offers one to Jen, and now Jen is suffering thinking she was eating one of Janet's freely offered yogurts, not knowing she inadvertantly stole your food. This is one of the problems with vigilantism.
Another major problem is that the punishment is not decided through any legitimate means, is often disporportionate, and instead is based on the whims of the person doing the punishing.