It is a living thing. Having had my moral sensibilities appropriately trained, I see what would be the right or wrong thing to do in this present situation. I therefore do not like your amendment to the example. An illusion is being rejected, or a mental straitjacket is being removed. If it were not for that fact, a 'synthesis' would merely be an eclectic hotchpotch of bits cobbled together from competing theories.
Utilitarianism recognises that there are practical limitations on calculating 'utilities'.
If I have to calculate all the consequences before I give, then I will never give at all. I' can only exist in a world as an empirical subject tracing a path through space encountering various objects along the way. Ultimately, however, all that exists is the given from which a theory concerning 'I' and 'objects in the world' is constructed.