People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.

It is, after all, hard to fathom how a $5000 sexual encounter could be that much better than a $500 one. But the mere expectation that it will be better may be sufficient to actually make it better. And it may be that had we scanned Spitzer’s brain in medias res, we would have seen not only that he thought it was better, but that he was actually deriving more pleasure than a governor in another room who was paying only $500 or $50.

Sure, Spitzer is a hypocrite and a cheater, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting a good value from his whores.