Hanlon's razor is an adage, or rule of thumb, that states: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It is a philosophical razor that suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. It is purportedly named after one Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980).

Origin

In a compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law published in Arthur Bloch's Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980), the adage was titled "Hanlon's razor", without any indication of who "Hanlon" might be.

A statement similar to Hanlon's razor appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 novella "Logic of Empire". The character Doc in the story describes the "devil theory" fallacy, explaining, "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."

Hanlon's razor became well known after its inclusion in the Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang, in 1990. Later that year, the Jargon File editors declared its origin unknown, and wrote that there was a similar epigram by William James; however, it seems that this was a mistaken reference and that they actually meant William James Laidlay, since Laidlay is known to have written a comparable statement. In 1996, the Jargon File entry on Hanlon's Razor noted the existence of a similar statement in Heinlein's novella, with speculation that "Hanlon's razor" might be a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor". The link to Murphy's law was described in a pair of 2001 blog entries by Quentin Stafford-Fraser, citing emails from Joseph E. Bigler. In 2002, the Jargon File entry noted the same. The Jargon File now calls it a "Murphyism".

The name was inspired by Occam's razor.

Variations

Grey's law (a humorous parallel to Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law):

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

A variation appears in The Wheels of Chance (1896) by H. G. Wells:

There is very little deliberate wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness gives much the same results indeed, but in the ethical laboratory it shows a different nature.

A similar quote is also misattributed to Napoleon. Andrew Roberts, in his biography of Winston Churchill, quotes from Churchill's correspondence with King George VI in February 1943 regarding disagreements with Charles de Gaulle: "His insolence ... may be founded on stupidity rather than malice."

See also

  • List of eponymous laws
  • Finagle's law, anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment
  • Hitchens's razor, assertions made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence
  • Mike Alder § Newton's flaming laser sword, do not dispute propositions unless they can be shown to have observable consequences
  • Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is often the correct one
  • Principle of charity, interpret a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible
  • Stigler's law of eponymy, an observation that no scientific discovery is named after its discoverer
  • Sturgeon's law, ninety percent of everything is crap

Literature

  • Hubbard, Douglas W. (2020). The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It (Second ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. doi:. ISBN 9781119522034.