Limitations of Hanlon’s Razor
Hanlon’s Razor is a great mental model to employ.
Hanlon’s Razor
To unpack this, we need to look at what is meant by Hanlon’s Razor. The term is named for Robert J. Hanlon though proper attribution is widely disputed. Variations of the idea exist, but it is typically rendered as something like:
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
The idea behind this heuristic is that we should refrain from automatically assuming evil intent when a harmful action occurs. There could be, and often are, other plausible reasons as to why such an act transpired. One of these alternative explanations could be stupidity on the part of the doer (though there might be slightly nicer ways of putting it).
This mental model is known as a razor because, like Occam’s Razor, it is used to shave off unnecessary explanations thus leaving only the most probable option (stupidity in this case) for consideration.
In all honesty, this is a valuable rule of thumb for our everyday interactions with others. Typically, when something undesirable happens to us, it’s not because of the deliberate efforts of someone else to negatively impact us. Therefore, as a general rule, it is sound advice to refrain from jumping to conclusions unnecessarily when there may be no…
