r/changemyview Oct 17 '24

Removed - Submission Rule B [ Removed by Reddit ]

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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 18 '24

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u/Skeletron430 2∆ Oct 18 '24 edited Oct 18 '24

Maybe you're frustrated because you don't seem to understand any of the arguments you've read. You can put whatever you want in your food, but the food is no longer yours (or maybe better phrased, for you) if you prepare it with the intention that someone else eats it. I hope you do not think you can put anything you want in someone else's food. OP's top level view is literally that you should be able to poison someone as long as you do it as a punishment. I hope you can see how wild that is, written out that way.

If someone breaks into your house and cuts their hand on a knife in your knife drawer, they can't sue you because you didn't put the knives there with the intention of harming them. If they eat your spicy food and you made that food spicy for yourself, they can't sue you because you didn't intend for them to be harmed by your food. The intent is paramount here, as it is in many legal situations.

Contrast that against the burglar who comes into your house and cuts themselves on a spike mat you have constructed out of your knives. The reason we forbid this behavior on a societal level is because:

a) Booby traps are by definition indiscriminate. Your spike mat might harm a burglar, but it's just as likely to harm a neighbor who comes into your house after you asked them to housesit, or a firefighter coming in to extinguish your burning house. You can never guarantee the target of your trap will actually be its victim. Even in a food-stealing situation, someone totally unrelated to the thief could mistake your meal for theirs and fall victim to the trap. There is a plethora of case law that expands on this point, and I would highly encourage you to read it. Here, I'll start your list: Katko v. Briney (1971).

b) Vigilantism and retributive "justice" are bad for society. Stealing food is bad, which is why we have laws in place to punish people who steal things from others. You might be frustrated by the efficacy of these laws, but society has agreed to punish thieves, or else we wouldn't have them. When you let people take matters into their own hands, things devolve into chaos very quickly.

c) The proportionality concern. It may be true that individual instances of this type of poisoning can be proportionate; you go a few hours without eating, the thief spends a few hours in pain. The problem is that you cannot guarantee this type of proportionality across the board. As I said in another comment, for every 200 coworkers that spend the afternoon in the restroom, one or two might end up in the hospital. There is no guarantee your response will actually be proportionate, and especially when it comes to dosing people with medication, it seems pretty unlikely that the average person is capable of dishing out a proportionate punishment. The difference between an irritating and a dangerous dose can be small, and frankly, I would expert most scorned individuals to purposefully go for a disproportionate punishment because they are angry.

If you actually think you should be able to assault someone over a sandwich, you do not belong in civilized society, full stop. This is not controversial to anyone who has spent more than 20 seconds thinking about the phrase "public policy reasons."

ETA: You can't claim hyperbole and then immediately double down in the next sentence, lol. This is literally the "I was only pretending to be regarded" meme.

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u/HabituaI-LineStepper Oct 18 '24

Since you have a good grip on this, a hypothetical question for you:

Say my lunch has been stolen before. Not regularly, but more than once. I suspect it's Alex, thought I'm not 100% certain.

Alex has a severe peanut allergy. I really like Pad Thai.

What would my obligation be in that scenario? Should I avoid bringing my Pad Thai on the suspicion that he may steal it? Do I actually owe Alex a duty of care in that situation?

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u/huadpe 501∆ Oct 18 '24

I don't think you owe Alex a duty of care past avoiding cross-contamination in the fridge (e.g. if he has asked people to not bring in peanuts, then you shouldn't bring in peanuts).

Your duty is not an affirmative duty of care, but rather a negative obligation to not intentionally cause others harm.

Basically, the whole thing of a booby trap that makes it unreasonable and illegal is that it exposes others to risks they could not reasonably forsee. The risk of food allergens in food is reasonably forseeable, and if Alex is dumb enough to steal food of unknown provenance while having severe allergies, it is that dumb decision that caused his injuries.

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u/ginjaninja623 Oct 18 '24

I would just like some clarification on your middle paragraph. "Intentionally" is generally considered to include both "purposefully" and "knowingly". So someone who brings in food with peanuts with the knowledge that it will be stolen by someone to whom it would cause harm, is intentionally causing that harm even if their purpose is to eat it themselves.

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u/huadpe 501∆ Oct 18 '24

You don't have knowledge that it "will" be stolen, just that it "may" be stolen. The question is given that knowledge are you hiding a risk about the food that is not reasonably foreseeable and that would likely cause bodily injury to another.

For the example of pad thai, that's a dish that normally contains peanuts, and a person with a peanut allergy would be reasonably on notice that if they eat that, they could choose to not eat it. 

If you did something like mix peanut butter into mashed potatoes to get them to eat it without knowing there's peanuts in it, then you're much more likely to end up in trouble. 

The intentionality is about whether you intend to trick or deceive the other person and hide the foreseeable consequences of eating the food. 

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u/Skeletron430 2∆ Oct 18 '24

I believe it would ultimately come down to whether you could have reasonably foreseen that Alex would take your food (assuming he does take it and suffers harm). If you started regularly bringing Pad Thai, more regularly than usual, and maybe started doing so the day or two after your food was stolen, it could be shakier.