This paper explores archival material concerning the reception of Leonard J. Savage's foundational work of subjective-Bayesian decision-making. The focus is on the criticism raised in the early 1960s by Daniel Ellsberg, William Fellner and Cedric Smith, who were supporters of the newly developed...

At least since Leonard Savage’s extension of von Neumann and Morgenstern’s expected utility, rational choice theory has been interpreted as a theory prescribing what individuals should do in any decision context, ranging from certainty to risk and uncertainty. After decades this received...