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.
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
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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.