Not to evoke a recursive nightmare, but some utility function alterations appear to be strictly desirable.

As an obvious example, if I were on a diet and I could rewrite my utility function such that the utilities assigned to consuming spinach and cheesecake were swapped, I see no harm in making that edit. One could argue that my second-order utility (and all higher) function should be collapsed into my first-order one, such that this would not really change my meta-utility function, but this issue just highlights the futility of trying to cram my complex, conflicting, and oft-inconsistent desires into a utility function.

This does raise an interesting issue: if I'm a strictly selfish utilitarian, do I not want my utility function to be that which will attain the highest expected utility? Selfishness is not necessary; it just makes the question much simpler.