Once we have the basics

Qualitative choices don't have to involve trade-offs. 

"We tend to always wonder: What's that person's true preference? What do they really want? That's the wrong question, because we want it all." "Why Isn't the Brain Green?", NYTimes Magazine, 4/19/09, page 40. 

We in fact refuse to trade-off classes of things we want. We only trade-off units of one good within a class against units another good within the same class. 

Once we have the basics, the rest is excess and while one could say we have preferences for more of this and less of that, it's not really all that important. Those choices don't materially contribute to our welfare. Once we have the basics our welfare depends on decisions we make around caring and contentment.