Investing in Sin. Or maybe Healthcare.

How hard is it to know right from wrong?

It's a question ethicists hear a lot (usually implying that we're wasting our time). And while we may indeed waste time, it's the wrong question.

The tough questions, the interesting questions, aren't right-versus-wrong, but right-versus-more-right or wrong-versus-less-wrong.

I've written about this before (e.g., here), but a DealBook column by Andrew Ross Sorkin in today's New York Times got me thinking about it again.

The question raised is: What are the ethics of investing in marijuana? (Full column, here)

The genesis of the column was the announcement last week by Founders Fund, a major venture capital firm, that it was investing millions in a marijuana company called Privateer Holdings. (An LA Times story about the investment can be found here.)

Sorkin argues that this venture capital investment "will put pressure on some emerging fault lines." What does he mean?

Public pension funds and university endowments are increasingly shying away from putting their money in so-called sin industries and focusing on more “socially responsible” investments, but it’s unclear where marijuana falls on this spectrum. Is marijuana closer to the health care industry, given its benefits for certain ailments, or should it be lumped into the same category as cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, guns and, in some quarters, fossil fuels and sugary soda?

As an example of the shifting investment sands, Sorkin cites the Rockefeller family's announcement to divest the family's funds from fossil fuels. (Union Theological Seminary made a similar decision last June, the first seminary to do so, citing Scriptural values of caring for God's creation.)

So where would you put marijuana? On the sin side or the health side?

Many banks -- major and minor -- refuse to provide financial services to marijuana suppliers. But many studies seem to indicate that marijuana can provide significant relief for certain conditions.

So the question isn't just right-versus-wrong, or even right-versus-more-right, or wrong-versus-less-wrong, but: What makes it right, or wrong?