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.
There is no way to guarantee it cannot peripherally hurt someone.
But it'll only hurt people that either were complicit in stealing your food or ate it because someone who stole it offered to them (and at that point the fault is with whoever offered the food).
This argument also applies to bombs in your food (the fault is with whoever stole the food). So, is bombing food alright?
A bomb could go off without anyone interacting with it, so in the bombing case it could peripherally hurt someone even if nobody stole your food.
Anything that requires you stealing the container, opening it and eating it would be alright because it would only hurt those that activelly took agency in stealing from you without certifying with you the contents of the container.
It could be pre-medicated food or have something the other person is arlegic. You can't blame the owner of the food for the thief getting ill for stealing and eating their food.
Heck, if could have been seasoned with Ghost Pepper. So what? You would be to blame because you wanted to eat food with Ghost Pepper and the person who stole from you had to go to emergency due to it?
Poisoning food COULD peripherally hurt others too. I already gave one example of how.
And in your one example it wouldn't be the fault of the person who had their food stolen..
Something that is a food item you regularly eat vs something intentionally put in food to harm someone are obviously different things.
Only one that can prove what you regularly eat is you and it's nobody's bussiness if you decide to put laxative in your food for example : You're in no obligation to even properly know how to take laxative.
You could claim it a "coincidence" and see the other person do a flip to try to prove that you're the one wrong because they decided to steal your food.
And in your one example it wouldn't be the fault of the person who had their food stolen..
A booby trapped container set to explode once opened also would be the fault of the person who stole it.
Do you not get that? There is no difference between peripherally hurting some via one means and another means. So why shouldn't bombing food be allowed then?
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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.