But in the part of the article you quoted above, the author (me) specifically acknowledges the utility of enjoying saved lives. But this is a critique of the quadratic funding mechanism, which is a public goods funding mechanism meant to maximize the utility each individual independently derives from enjoying public good.
The whole point of the article is to critique this assumption -- to point out that people's motives are sometimes altruistic (they derive utility just from knowing other people benefit), but the optimality of QF assumes this vicarious utility does not exist. As the article states "When individuals make contributions for purely altruistic reasons, they don’t directly experience the utility themselves. And yet the optimality of QF assumes that all utility is direct utility, benefiting the contributor only."