To understand the pique on display now that Eliot Spitzer has sued former New York Stock Exchange Chief Richard Grasso to recover a chunk of Grasso’s outsized compensation, it’s helpful to think of two moral universes – one for certain boardrooms, one for the rest of humanity – in which very different behaviors are considered offensive.

To an outside observer, the notion that anyone could earn $200 million in cash, pension and benefits from running a nonprofit quasi-regulatory body for eight years seems the definition of crony capitalism run amok. That Grasso had his compensation set by the leaders of firms he regulated makes the whole deal smell like protection money – depressing proof of ethical lapses by those charged with upholding the integrity of American capitalism.

But Grasso is reacting with what seems to be the sincere fury of an innocent man wrongly accused. His contract was a straightforward commercial transaction, he says. He won’t give back “a dime” because that would be to admit wrongdoing.

He says Spitzer’s decision to exclude all but one of the NYSE’s star-studded board from the suit proves this is all about politics – as in, Spitzer makes headlines while also making nice with Wall Street bigwigs who can help his gubernatorial ambitions. Finally, Grasso says the NYSE’s board, comprised of men accustomed to earning $20 million or more a year, knew exactly what it was doing. Why single him out?

Improbable as it sounds, in Grasso’s moral universe – the one operating during the late 1990s bubble – he is therefore a victim.

But in language market-watchers will understand, what’s really happened is that Grasso has gotten caught up in a kind of “ethical market correction.” The herd has belatedly woken up to the fact it is just plain wrong to receive mega-entrepreneurial wealth for running the New York Stock Exchange.

It’s an interesting cultural note that it takes the ambition of someone like Spitzer – who came by his wealth the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it – to be the vehicle through which such common sense gets reasserted.

The bigger picture here, as argued by David Callahan in an important new book, “The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong To Get Ahead,” is that the corrosive effect of self-dealing and enrichment by powerful insiders is the real “values” issues facing the country – not the troika of “guns, gays and God” that the conservative movement usually stresses come election time.

Thus Grasso’s rage. The board knew. The benchmarks – within the rigged, clubby world of executive compensation discussions – were “reasonable.” Now they’re welshing and running for cover. Someone has to take the public fall for a system out of control.

Still, it’s hard to feel too badly for Mr. Grasso. Even if Spitzer wins, it looks like Grasso will still pocket $50 million to $100 million for his NYSE service, numbers that themselves would prompt outrage if they were the pre-lawsuit figures. So many zeros, so hard to keep track!

In another sense, though, Grasso is already paying a higher price. According to Newsweek, when Grasso’s daughter told him that one of her college classes was using Daddy’s pay as an example of Wall Street greed, Grasso “almost lost it.”

Because you can’t put a price tag on the respect of your children, Grasso will understandably fight this with everything he’s got.

But outside the Grasso family, the rest of us should be clear: That Grasso’s fight for the wages of crony capitalism can be cast with a straight face as a defense of “principle” reminds us how deep the moral confusion has been among some of our business elites – and how much the vast majority of ethical business leaders still need to do to restore common-sense restraints on human greed.

Matthew Miller is a syndicated columnist and author. He can be reached on the Web at: www.mattmilleronline.com.