I have not seen this "style" of proof before of AoC/Zorn's lemma by thinking of partial functions as monotone functions on .
§ Zorn's Lemma implies Axiom of Choice
If we are given Zorn's lemma and the set , to build a choice function, we consider the collection of functions such that either or . This can be endowed with a partial order / join semilattice structure using the "flat" lattice, where for all , and .
For every chain of functions, we have a least upper bound, since a chain of functions is basically a collection of functions where each function is "more defined" than .
Hence we can always get a maximal element , which has a value defined at each . Otherwise, if we have , the element is not maximal, since it is dominated by a larger function which is defined at .
Hence, we've constructed a choice function by applying Zorn's Lemma. Thus, Zorn's Lemma implies Axiom of Choice.