Not only is this distinct from other values which laws may
have or lack, but sometimes the demands of justice may conflict
with other values. This may occur, when a court, in
sentencing a particular offender for a crime which has become
prevalent, passes a severer sentence than that passed in
other similar cases, and avowedly does this 'as a warning'.
There is here a sacrifice of the principle 'Treat like cases
alike' to the general security or welfare of society. In civil
cases, a similar conflict between justice and the general good
is resolved in favour of the latter, when the law provides no
remedy for some moral wrong because to enforce compensation
in such cases might involve great difficulties of proof, or
overburden the courts, or unduly hamper enterprise. There is
a limit to the amount of law enforcement which any society
can afford, even when moral wrong has been done. Conversely
the law, in the name of the general welfare of society,
may enforce compensation from one who has injured another,
even where morally, as a matter of justice, it might not be
thought due. This is often said to be the case when liability
in tort is strict, i.e. independent of the intention to injure or
failure to take care. This form of liability is sometimes defended
on the ground that it is in the interest of 'society' that
those accidentally injured should be compensated; and it is
claimed that the easiest way of doing this is to place the
burden on those whose activities, however carefully controlled,
result in such accidents. They commonly have deep
pockets and opportunities to insure. When this defence is
made, there is in it an implicit appeal to the general welfare
of society which, though it may be morally acceptable and
sometimes even called 'social justice', differs from the primary
forms of justice which are concerned simply to redress, as far
as possible, the status quo as between two individuals.