Basically the amount you’d expect: if medical technology allowed me to regrow the finger with full use of it, that would mitigate it considerably. With current technology, it gets me a lifetime of inconvenience.
At the level of loss of a fingernail, I think the answer is a no-brainer: (a) gets me considerably less total pain, with both options protracted over a period of time that makes time preference mostly inconsequential (24 hours, and maybe a couple weeks); getting a fingernail ripped off isn’t a bad enough experience to have any significant long-term impact on my mental state.
I’d go with (a) for values of (a) smaller than loss of a finger.
how much does the level of medical technology in the society in which you live matter?
Basically the amount you’d expect: if medical technology allowed me to regrow the finger with full use of it, that would mitigate it considerably. With current technology, it gets me a lifetime of inconvenience.
At the level of loss of a fingernail, I think the answer is a no-brainer: (a) gets me considerably less total pain, with both options protracted over a period of time that makes time preference mostly inconsequential (24 hours, and maybe a couple weeks); getting a fingernail ripped off isn’t a bad enough experience to have any significant long-term impact on my mental state.