Your guess is precisely right. Ex-post evaluations have really developed as an alternative to ex-ante approaches to decision-making under risk. Waiting until the outcome realises does not help us make decisions. Thinking about how we can justify ourselves depending on the various outcomes we know could realise does help us.
The name can definitely be misleading, I see how it can pull people into debates about retrospective claims and objective/subjective permissibility.
Your guess is precisely right. Ex-post evaluations have really developed as an alternative to ex-ante approaches to decision-making under risk. Waiting until the outcome realises does not help us make decisions. Thinking about how we can justify ourselves depending on the various outcomes we know could realise does help us.
The name can definitely be misleading, I see how it can pull people into debates about retrospective claims and objective/subjective permissibility.
Sorry I edited this as I had another thought.