TB: Hanlon's Razor
Definition
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by negligence, incompetence, or ignorance. Most people doing wrong are not bad people trying to be malicious — stupidity is far more common than malice.
Why it matters
Defaulting to malicious intent as an explanation poisons relationships and reasoning. It forecloses productive engagement and creates unnecessary adversarial framing. The razor restores charity as a prior: assume the most benign adequate explanation first, then update only if evidence demands it.
Examples from reading
- Hanlon's Razor (source note): The observation that stupidity far exceeds malice as a cause of bad outcomes.