Whether the reported story is true is of no moment, as it will never be clear whether passengers on Aeroflot Flight 1492 who stopped to retrieve their bag cost dozens of people their lives.

The online hate was instant, if based on sketchy information. The carry-on grabbers were accused of having hindered the escape of fellow passengers, dozens of whom died in the flames.

No one may ever know how true that is, but the passengers did violate one of the most basic rules of air safety. As a headline in the Travel section of The Times put it after the accident, In the Event of an Emergency, Leave Your Luggage on the Plane. Really.

Seems too obvious for discussion? Oh, sweet summer child. Nothing is too obvious for discussion in a world where narcissism reigns and no feeling is unworthy of respect.

Psychologists caution, though, against being too quick to judge. That guy in front of you who enters the subway — then stops dead and looks at his phone? He probably is a jerk. That passenger reaching for the bag with his favorite sweater or maybe a present for his kid? He’s probably just acting human.

It’s hard to judge when you’re, well, dead. But still.

Decisions made in moments of intense emotion are often the least rational, said Debra Borys, a forensic and clinical psychologist in Los Angeles. And it surely does not get more intense than it was for the passengers on Aeroflot Flight 1492 last Sunday.

“They’re feeling so utterly terrified and powerless,” Dr. Borys said.

Human emotion is what it is, but that’s not the gist of Dr. Borys pitch. Rather, it’s to excuse people who act upon their emotion with reckless abandon because they’re told that it’s valid and they’re entitled to do so, even when it costs other people their lives. And it’s not their fault, because they can’t help themselves.

It may also not be quite accurate, she said, to view the passengers’ actions as a conscious choice. “I don’t think we should think of it as a decision when they grab their stuff,” she said. “I think we should think about it as an impulse.” The goal may not have been safeguarding possessions; they may simply have been seeking a little emotional comfort.

Are they not entitled to “a little emotional comfort”? This has become the primary excuse for much of our social engineering of late, that feelings, whether real or imagined, provide indisputable cover for whatever one does. This was the insipid argument against Harvard lawprof, house dean and criminal defense lawyer Ronald Sullivan, that the facts, logic and principles had to be weighed against the “emotional comfort” of students.

But the Aeroflot Flight 1492 scenario crystallizes the point, taking it to its logical extreme. Whereas one of the rationalizations for why Sullivan’s being punished for defending a hated defendant didn’t carry sufficient weight is that he only lost his Winthrop House position, not his lawprof position. Of course, had he lost both, it might not have changed the equation, but since he didn’t, it’s an ameliorative argument in favor of “emotional comfort.”

But here, it’s about life. If that guy who stopped to get his bag, who blocked the aisle, who prevented others from escaping the fire, can be forgiven being human, needing “a little emotional comfort,” what of the people who didn’t escape and died?

Interestingly, there were some letters to the editor that faced this issue.

If I ever have to evacuate a burning plane, I won’t be polite and ask that you please leave your items and move to the exit, nor say “please, take your time, and can I help you with that?” To the contrary: I will knock you down and step on you to get past you if you prevent my egress by reaching overhead for your precious possessions. That’s not callous; that’s survival instinct.

Fair warning.

Does each human being not have the right to survive?

I cruise a lot (I’m an 87-year-old woman). I’ve lately wondered if an evacuation occurred at night, what would I grab? My wig (I’m almost bald)? My dentures (vanity prevents me from being seen without them)? My glasses (so I can find my lifeboat)? My passport (so I’ll have identification)? Or my money (since I’ll have nothing and will have to buy stuff)?

While this may well be satirical, which I sorely hope it is, does it strike anyone as too far from reality to believe possible?

There is an argument to be made that “a little emotional comfort” is hardly too much as ask, provided that cost isn’t disproportionately high. A life, most would agree, is too great a price, but a job, a career, one’s freedom? Where is the line drawn in a world where every emotion is sacred? What makes one person’s desire for “emotional comfort” more important than another person’s? What about weighing the invisible claim of feelings against the objective claim of consequences?

“No love,” quoth he, “but vanity, sets love a task like that.”