ABSTRACT
Decisions are often described a posteriori as irrational from a normative standpoint.
However, it is worth asking whether this apparent irrationality is not strongly related to,
and even justified in, the context in which the decision was made. This issue is a critical
one when the context is a crisis. In such circumstances, indeed, the human and economic
consequences mean that the normal criteria used for evaluating a decision do not seem
well suited to judging the relevance of the choices made.
