Questioning limits of action: awful, yet ironic (8)

I believe the answer is:

analytic

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'ironic' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

I don't understand the rest of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for analytic that I've seen before include "Breaking down" , "Exploratory" , "interpretive" , "Methodical" , "searching" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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