I agree that I would rather go through my most painful-ever experiences again than go through a much longer period of chronic pain because chronic pain is debilitating.
In general, I expect a lot of people to feel more averse to chronic rather than acute pain—with the assumption that the long-term effects of chronic pain are greater than those of acute—once thinking beyond themselves. That is, considering not just what they themselves would prefer, all else held equal, but also damage to their productivity and ability to help others (e.g duty to friends and family; desire to help the world). This preference might not change the lived experience of the pain, but it might still be morally relevant.
This might mean that, at a species level, relative aversiveness to different kinds of pains might depend on animals’ social roles. I wonder if social animals, particularly social insects, might be less averse to pain in a morally relevant way if the pain is contracted as a result of e.g defending the nest or hive.
This is an interesting question, relating to the evolutionary role of pain going beyond protection of the individual survival and immediate reproduction (or that of kin), but affecting the group as a whole. As you said, debilitating pain (i.e., pain that prevents individuals to function normally) for a solitary species may also have different moral implications than for a social species even if the unpleasantness of the pain experience is the same.
My impression is that it would be difficult to determine differences in pain aversiveness among species with different degrees of sociality given the confounders present. For example, there might be differences in hedonic and cognitive capacity between social and non-social species (see eg here), hence differences in aversiveness to pain for reasons other than the context of the painful experience.
I agree that I would rather go through my most painful-ever experiences again than go through a much longer period of chronic pain because chronic pain is debilitating.
In general, I expect a lot of people to feel more averse to chronic rather than acute pain—with the assumption that the long-term effects of chronic pain are greater than those of acute—once thinking beyond themselves. That is, considering not just what they themselves would prefer, all else held equal, but also damage to their productivity and ability to help others (e.g duty to friends and family; desire to help the world). This preference might not change the lived experience of the pain, but it might still be morally relevant.
This might mean that, at a species level, relative aversiveness to different kinds of pains might depend on animals’ social roles. I wonder if social animals, particularly social insects, might be less averse to pain in a morally relevant way if the pain is contracted as a result of e.g defending the nest or hive.
This is an interesting question, relating to the evolutionary role of pain going beyond protection of the individual survival and immediate reproduction (or that of kin), but affecting the group as a whole. As you said, debilitating pain (i.e., pain that prevents individuals to function normally) for a solitary species may also have different moral implications than for a social species even if the unpleasantness of the pain experience is the same.
My impression is that it would be difficult to determine differences in pain aversiveness among species with different degrees of sociality given the confounders present. For example, there might be differences in hedonic and cognitive capacity between social and non-social species (see eg here), hence differences in aversiveness to pain for reasons other than the context of the painful experience.