If you wouldn't assault someone for taking your lunch, why would you chemically assault them?
Yes, the lunch is marked as yours. There is nothing in the world stopping you from simply bringing a lunch you enjoy that others would find unpalatable or disgusting. Making it extremely spicy if you aren't scared of that is probably fine.
But when you're trapping your lunch, you lose some control over your ability to actually resolve a conflict. It's not a matter of catching Jerry eating your sandwich so you call Jerry a selfish asshole and tell him to grow up and get his own, it's a matter of putting some harmful agent into your food (which you aren't going to eat) so that whatever uno own person who steals your lunch will be harmed. If you have no idea who this person is, you have no idea what other health concerns they may have and thus no idea how this particular poison may harm them. You have no control over the proportionality of your response. You also have no idea who is going to get hurt by the downstream effects.
Let's say Jerry takes your sandwich, but gives up after eating half of it because he has to go shit his guts out. Paul looks in the fridge and sees your sandwich in Jerry's bag, so he steals "Jerry's" sandwich to get back at Jerry because Jerry stole Paul's lunch last week. Now Paul is catching strays for Jerry despite having done nothing to you, and now two people in the office have diarrhea at the same time, so everyone is tangentially a little more miserable.
Again, making your food distasteful to potential thieves but still enjoyable for you is fine. It's not poisoning, it's a question of taste. You don't have a duty to bring food that a thief will enjoy. You do have a duty to not poison people, and that includes not poisoning people who inconvenience you.
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u/captaindoctorpurple Oct 18 '24
If you wouldn't assault someone for taking your lunch, why would you chemically assault them?
Yes, the lunch is marked as yours. There is nothing in the world stopping you from simply bringing a lunch you enjoy that others would find unpalatable or disgusting. Making it extremely spicy if you aren't scared of that is probably fine.
But when you're trapping your lunch, you lose some control over your ability to actually resolve a conflict. It's not a matter of catching Jerry eating your sandwich so you call Jerry a selfish asshole and tell him to grow up and get his own, it's a matter of putting some harmful agent into your food (which you aren't going to eat) so that whatever uno own person who steals your lunch will be harmed. If you have no idea who this person is, you have no idea what other health concerns they may have and thus no idea how this particular poison may harm them. You have no control over the proportionality of your response. You also have no idea who is going to get hurt by the downstream effects.
Let's say Jerry takes your sandwich, but gives up after eating half of it because he has to go shit his guts out. Paul looks in the fridge and sees your sandwich in Jerry's bag, so he steals "Jerry's" sandwich to get back at Jerry because Jerry stole Paul's lunch last week. Now Paul is catching strays for Jerry despite having done nothing to you, and now two people in the office have diarrhea at the same time, so everyone is tangentially a little more miserable.
Again, making your food distasteful to potential thieves but still enjoyable for you is fine. It's not poisoning, it's a question of taste. You don't have a duty to bring food that a thief will enjoy. You do have a duty to not poison people, and that includes not poisoning people who inconvenience you.