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Vulture comments on Open thread, 11-17 August 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think this is probably literally correct, but misleading. "Maximizing X's utility" is generally taken to mean "maximize your own utility function over X". So in that sense you are quite correct. But if by "maximizing the world's utility" you mean something more like "maximizing the aggregate utility of everyone in the world", then what you say is only true of those who adhere to some kind of preference utilitarianism. Other utilitarians would not necessarily agree.
Hedonic utilitarians would also say that they want to maximize the aggregate utility of everyone in the world, they would just have a different conception of what that entails. Utilitarianism necessarily means maximizing aggregate utility of everyone in the world, though different utilitarians can disagree about what that means - but they'd agree that maximizing one's own utility is contrary to utilitarianism.
Anyone who believes that "maximizing one's own utility is contrary to utilitarianism" is fundamentally confused as to the standard meaning of at least one of those terms. Not knowing which one, however, I'm not sure what I can say to make the matter more clear.
Maximizing one's own utility is practical rationality. Maximizing the world's aggregate utility is utilitarianism. The two need not the the same, and in fact can conflict. For example, you may prefer to buy a cone of ice cream, but world utility would be bettered more effectively if you'd donate that money to charity instead. Buying the ice cream would be the rational own-utility-maximizing thing to do, and donating to charity would be the utilitarian thing to do.
However, if utilitarianism is your ethics, the world's utility is your utility, and the distinction collapses. A utilitarian will never prefer to buy that ice cream.
It's the old System I (want ice cream!) vs System 2 (want world peace!) friction again.