They may be a bad descriptive match. But in prescriptive terms, how do you "help" someone without a utility function?

Isn't "helping" a situation where the prescription is derived from the description? Are you suggesting we lie about others' desires so we can more easily claim to help satisfy them?

Helping others can be very tricky. I like to wait until someone has picked a specific, short term goal. Then I decide whether to help them with that goal, and how much.