silly question

No, it will do bad things to it's structure. Excessive carbon reacts bad to stainless steels. It causes chromium carbide cracking.

You would be better off buying some 400 series SS, like 410, 420 or 430.

That's what I thought, damn. I thought maybe I could get harden a hinge pin on a stainless meat saw and have to replace it less often,,

Yes, but you wouldn't like the results ! (Try it !)

You can introduce carbon into the surface OK, but the metallurgy goes berserk and it ends up brittle as anything and full of cracks. This is enough of a problem that it even occurs with "accidental" case hardening, if you have hot metal near a carbon source and short on oxygen.

You can work harden it, but 300 series SS is classed as non-hardening. You can surface coat it, like the gold toned mill bits and drills, and that will last until you wear through the coating.

Charly

I'm well aware of it's work hardening, I worked for a while making bone biopsy tools and fracture fixation devices when that stuff gets work hardened it'll eat carbide drill bits, end mills and lathe inserts like they were made out of lead.