So far we have considered the justice or injustice of laws
which may be viewed as distributing among individuals burdens
and benefits. Some of the benefits are tangible, like poor
relief, or food rations; others are intangible, like the protection
from bodily harm given by the criminal law, or the facilities
afforded by laws relating to testamentary or contractual
capacity, or the right to vote. From distribution in this wide
sense, we must distinguish compensation for injury done by one
person to another. Here the connection between what is just and the central precept of justice 'Treat like cases alike and
different cases differently' is certainly less direct. Yet it is not
too indirect to be traced and may be seen in the following
way. The laws which provide for the compensation by one
person of another for torts or civil injuries might be considered
unjust for two different reasons. They might, on the one
hand, establish unfair privileges or immunities. This would
be so if only peers could sue for libel, or if no white person
were liable to a coloured person for trespass or assault. Such
laws would violate, in a straightforward way, principles of
fair distribution of the rights and duties of compensation. But
such laws might also be unjust in a quite different way: for
while making no unfair discriminations they might fail altogether
to provide a remedy for certain types of injury inflicted
by one person on another, even though morally compensation
would be thought due. In this matter the law might be
unjust while treating all alike.