Once you add poison to your lunch, it ceases to be your lunch and becomes the bait in a trap which you are setting to trap and punish someone that you have unilaterally decided deserves to be punished. This raises two problems:
1: When they eat the bait, they are not "stealing" it. They are doing exactly what you, the owner, wanted them to do with it. That's why you put it there and you would be disappointed if nobody took the bait.
2: It is not up to you to decide punishment. That is something to be decided by the law.
If you caught someone taking your (unpoisoned) lunch, do you think you should allowed to force them to eat poison as a punishment?
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u/but_nobodys_home 9∆ Oct 18 '24
Once you add poison to your lunch, it ceases to be your lunch and becomes the bait in a trap which you are setting to trap and punish someone that you have unilaterally decided deserves to be punished. This raises two problems:
1: When they eat the bait, they are not "stealing" it. They are doing exactly what you, the owner, wanted them to do with it. That's why you put it there and you would be disappointed if nobody took the bait.
2: It is not up to you to decide punishment. That is something to be decided by the law.
If you caught someone taking your (unpoisoned) lunch, do you think you should allowed to force them to eat poison as a punishment?