It’s 4:59 PM. You just sent a “quick question” to a coworker. You see the three little dots appear in Slack. They’re typing. Then the dots disappear. You wait. Nothing. Five minutes later, you see they’re offline.
Your brain immediately jumps to the worst conclusion. “They’re ignoring me. They saw my question and deliberately logged off. They’re trying to sabotage my project.” You spend the rest of the evening stewing, convinced you’re surrounded by enemies.
The next morning, you get a message: “So sorry! My laptop died right as I was replying. The answer is...”
You haven’t just had night stuck in your head with pointless rage. You’ve just been given a masterclass in a simple, powerful, and sanity-saving principle for navigating the world. A law that reminds us that most of the time, people aren’t evil. They’re just clumsy, forgetful, or incompetent.
It’s called Hanlon’s Razor.
The Origin Story: A Joke for a Book
The law is credited to a guy named Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted it as a joke for a book compilation of Murphy’s Law-style adages in 1980. His razor-sharp observation, which became an instant classic, was this:
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
It’s a heuristic, a mental shortcut, that encourages us to give people the benefit of the doubt. The name “razor” is a nod to Occam’s Razor, the principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. Hanlon’s Razor just adds a twist: the simplest explanation for why someone wronged you is probably not a grand conspiracy. It’s probably just that they messed up.
The idea itself is much older. A similar sentiment appeared in a 1941 sci-fi novella by Robert Heinlein, and you can find variations of it going back centuries. But Hanlon gave it a catchy name, and in doing so, gave us a powerful tool for a less angry life.
The Basic Explanation
Hanlon’s Principle is a diagnostic tool for human behavior. It argues that when something goes wrong, our default assumption shouldn’t be that the person responsible had bad intentions. It should be that they were careless, ignorant, distracted, or just plain incompetent.
Why? Because true, calculated malice is actually pretty rare. It takes a lot of energy, planning, and risk. Stupidity, on the other hand, is abundant, effortless, and happens by accident.
Think of it like this:
The Malice Explanation: Your coworker is a Machiavellian genius who has been plotting for weeks to undermine you by strategically ignoring your Slack messages at the perfect moment.
The Stupidity Explanation: Your coworker’s chronically forgets to plug in their laptop and gets distracted waiting for it to charge.
Which one sounds more likely? Hanlon’s Principle is a bet on the odds. And the odds are almost always on the side of simple human error.
Hanlon’s Principle in the Wild
Once you have a name for it, you see that this principle is the ultimate antidote to paranoia and outrage culture.
The Terrible Driver: The guy who just cut you off in traffic isn’t a monster who wants you to crash. He’s probably just checking his phone, yelling at his kids in the back seat, or is simply a terrible driver. It’s incompetence, not aggression.
The Forgetful Door Locker: Someone leaves their car unlocked in a parking lot, and their belongings are stolen. It’s not that they wanted their things to be taken; it’s simply a lapse in judgment or a moment of forgetfulness, which is adequately explained by a lack of carefulness rather than a desire for their possessions to be stolen.
The Political Gaffe: A politician says something clumsy and offensive. Is it a secret, coded message to their base? Or did they just misspeak because they’ve been giving five speeches a day for a month and are completely exhausted? Hanlon’s Principle suggests you start with the latter.
The “Unfriendly” Software: That new corporate software that seems designed to make your life miserable wasn’t created by sadists. It was probably created by a committee of well-meaning people who never actually talked to the end-users. It’s a product of incompetence, not malice.
How to Use This Law to Stay Sane
Hanlon’s Principle isn’t about letting people off the hook. It’s about saving your own mental energy for the things that actually matter.
Step 1: Pause Before You Personalize.
When you feel wronged, your first instinct is to make it about you. “They did this to me.” Before you go down that road, pause. Take a breath.
Step 2: Ask “What’s the Stupid Explanation?”
Actively search for the less malicious interpretation. Could they be busy? Overwhelmed? Did they just forget? Is it possible they don’t know any better? Usually, one of these is a much better fit than “they are an evil mastermind.”
Step 3: Give the Benefit of the Doubt (As a Default).
Make charity your default setting. Assume good intentions, or at least a lack of bad ones, until you have strong evidence to the contrary. This doesn’t make you a sucker; it makes you a calmer, more rational person.
Step 4: Know When the Razor Doesn’t Apply.
Hanlon’s Razor is a heuristic, not a universal law. Sometimes, it is malice. If a person or a system repeatedly causes harm, and never seems to learn from their “mistakes,” you might be dealing with genuine ill will. The razor is a starting point, not a blindfold.
The Bottom Line
Hanlon’s Razor is a simple but profound tool for a less angry, less paranoid, and more productive life. It reminds us that the world is not a grand conspiracy against us. It’s just a messy, chaotic place full of flawed, distracted, and often incompetent people who are mostly just trying to get through the day.
By choosing to assume stupidity over malice, you’re not just being kind to others. You’re being kind to yourself. You’re saving your emotional energy for the real problems, not the imaginary villains.
Named Law: Hanlon’s Razor
Simple Definition: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Origin: Credited to Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted it for a book of aphorisms in 1980.
More Info: Grokipedia Wikipedia
Category: Philosophy & Critical Thinking
Subcategory: Logic & Epistemology