Hanlon's razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways, including:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
It suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations ("attributions") for human behavior and its consequences. Statements of this kind are known as philosophical razors. It is an eponymous law, probably named after the writer Robert J. Hanlon.
Inspired by Occam's razor, the aphorism was popularized in this form and under this name by the Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang. In 1990, it appeared in the Jargon File described as a "'murphyism...