Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

Hanlon's razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways, including:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."[1]

An eponymous law, probably named after a Robert J. Hanlon, it is a philosophical razor which suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior.

Origin [ edit ]

Inspired by Occam's razor,[2] the aphorism was popularized[citation needed] in this form and under this name by the Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang.[3][1] Later that same year, the Jargon File editors noted lack of knowledge about the term's derivation and the existence of a similar epigram by William James.[4] In 1996, the Jargon File entry on Hanlon's Razor noted the existence of a similar quotation in Robert A. Heinlein's novella Logic of Empire (1941), with speculation that Hanlon's Razor might be a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor".[5] (The character "Doc" in Heinlein's story described the "devil theory" fallacy, explaining, "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.")[6]

In 2001, Quentin Stafford-Fraser published two blog entries citing e-mails from Joseph E. Bigler[7][8] explaining that the quotation originally came from Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, as a submission (credited in print) for a book 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).[9] Subsequently, in 2002, the Jargon File entry noted the same.[10]

See also [ edit ]