Hanlon's Razor
Hanlon's Razor is the heuristic "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance, incompetence, or error." It is a practical application of Occam's Razor to attributions of human intent — directing us to prefer the simpler explanation (mistake) over the more loaded one (bad faith) when both are plausible. Named after Robert J. Hanlon, it counteracts the Fundamental Attribution Error in interpersonal and organisational contexts.