Code Law Precludes Free Choice

Let’s say there is an ostensibly relative meta-rule of application. It would determine whether or not a very specific rule needs to be applied because it has been broken, but it is - mostly - not relative because the actor is stipulated not to matter and the circumstances under which the broken rule applies is distinct from the circumstances under which every other rule applies; its application to the very specific rule is non arbitrary and predicated on conditions that are always true (save whether or not the the very specific rule has been broken) - namely that the very specific broken rule applies regardless of actor, and in the distinct circumstances built into it.

Distinct, in this context, refers to the content of rules that is true regardless of whether or not the content of other laws is true - namely actor and circumstance, and the conditions that mean it has been broken.

However, whether or not the very specific rule is broken is a direct result of whether or not someone takes an action that breaks the rule - and so the meta-rule shifts: the selection of the very specific rule for application is predicated solely on someone's actions. Well, as far as I can tell, actions are the result of choice, which is a function of cause and effect, even if one believes in different possible future outcomes. For example: let's say there is a very specific law dictating that "no one should rob pharmacies for medication to reduce their wife's blistering fever". A man robs a pharmacy to get medication to reduce his wife's blistering fever. He wouldn't have done it if his wife didn't have a blistering fever.

He perhaps could have chosen otherwise, but not in the context of the meta-rule; the existence of the shifting meta-rule dictates that the buck must stop somewhere, and if not in the intelligible, original cause of the action that breaks the rule, or somewhere further back, then where? At the point where he could have chosen otherwise? But the meta-rule’s conditions would not be satisfied; if one believes in free will then that point is a junction unaffected by past causes - and the meta-rule needs a basic, original cause.

Even if one adopts an agent-causal theory and the action originates in a free choice, this does not satisfy the meta-rule’s need for a basic, original cause because the choice, and thus action, would be unaffected by external causation; while one may be able to start new causal chains via their actions unaffected by previous events or the laws of nature, these causal chains don’t give a causal explanation of the origination of the action; they originated with a free, uncaused choice. The meta-rule requires a basic original cause, and thus, the meta-rule cannot be applied and there is a breakdown of some of the most basic ideas that our legal system operates on.

Also: if one asserts that the man made a free choice and also that the meta-rule applies (there is an original cause for the rule being broken), the first cause, traced from the breaking of the rule, is the action, which is itself caused by the choice. The choice that causes the action is not the result of external causation, but rather caused by something inherent to the free aspect of a free choice. This something, however, even if purported to be the original cause, couldn't be the result of anything external to itself; Furthermore, it is ontologically distinct from external causes; the causal chain starting with the rule being broken must stop with the action, and the action just exists; it cannot have been the result of a free choice, in the context of the meta-rule. The man couldn't have chosen otherwise and is thus absolved of wrongdoing.

Thus, according to a certain libertarian view, the meta-rule governing whether or not a very specific non arbitrary rule should be applied should not be applied if the circumstances built into the broken rule are distinct from the circumstances that are included in any other rule.