Abstract: Ethics of utilitarianism has been confronting an actual difficulty all the time, this difficulty is a problem of making concrete standard at the time of measuring quantitatively utility. Early utilitarian used delight and happiness to stand for and measure utility, later used social value increased and welfare to indicate the substantial concept of utility, and now it uses mainly preference and its satisfaction to definite the essence of utility. This dissertation analyzes and summarizes the change and development of concept of utility in theory and practice, and makes new classification and analysis for them by the system of concepts of cognition, sentiments and wills of psychology.

Key words: Utility, happiness, delight, preference, welfare, value

摘要： 效用主义伦理学一直面临一个现实困难,就是“效用究竟是什么”的问题。在这一问题上,各派效用主义理论都有自己的概念体系。早期的效用主义者用快乐、幸福来代表和计量效用;中期的效用主义者用福利、增量社会价值来表示效用的实质概念;而现代派则主要用“偏好及其满足”的内涵来定义效用的实质。本文分析和总结了效用概念在理论和实践上的发展及延变,并且用心理学的知情意概念系统对它们做了新的分类和分析。

关键词: 效用, 幸福, 快乐, 偏好, 福利, 价值