Cite as: 504 U. S. 158 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
as our precedents make clear, the reasons for recognizing such an immunity were based not simply on the existence of a good faith defense at common law, but on the special policy concerns involved in suing government officials. Harlow, supra, at 813; Mitchell, supra, at 526. Reviewing these concerns, we conclude that the rationales mandating qualified immunity for public officials are not applicable to private parties.
Qualified immunity strikes a balance between compensating those who have been injured by official conduct and protecting government's ability to perform its traditional functions. Harlow, supra, at 819; Pierson, supra, at 554; Anderson, supra, at 638. Accordingly, we have recognized qualified immunity for government officials where it was necessary to preserve their ability to serve the public good or to ensure that talented candidates were not deterred by the threat of damages suits from entering public service. See, e. g., Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308, 319 (1975) (denial of qualified immunity to school board officials " 'would contribute not to principled and fearless decision-making but to intimidation' ") (quoting Pierson, supra, at 554); Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 506 (1978) (immunity for Presidential aides warranted partly "to protect officials who are required to exercise their discretion and the related public interest in encouraging the vigorous exercise of official authority"); Mitchell, supra, at 526 (immunity designed to prevent the " 'distraction of officials from their governmental duties, inhibition of discretionary action, and deterrence of able people from public service' " (quoting Harlow, supra, at 816)). In
assert an affirmative defense based on a similar showing of good faith and/ or probable cause. In neither case, however, is it appropriate to make the dissent's leap: that because these common law torts partially included an objective component—probable cause—private defendants sued under § 1983 should be entitled to the objectively determined, immediately appealable immunity from suit accorded certain government officials under Harlow.
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