"So we've got the first suggestion of a Law-fragment, which says that we shouldn't have any circular preferences."

"I claim that, equivalently, to this condition, it must be possible to put everything we want into a global ordering, say by tagging them with numbers -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, and so on, and then to determine which things we want more than one another, we just compare their numbers in the ordering, and we want more whichever has the higher number."

"Do you buy that?  If you don't buy it I would, of course, like to know why you're refusing the sale."

"So we've got the first suggestion of a Law-fragment, which says that we shouldn't have any circular preferences."

"I claim that, equivalently, to this condition, it must be possible to put everything we want into a global ordering, say by tagging them with numbers -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, and so on, and then to determine which things we want more than one another, we just compare their numbers in the ordering, and we want more whichever has the higher number.  If you have wants inconsistent with being able to do that, I can take all your money from you, or at least all your time."

"Do you buy that?  If you don't buy it I would, of course, like to know why you're refusing the sale."