have had his play produced if Miller's was not.
What Miller is saying through Chris at this point in the play is that the moral individual does indeed consider other people in making decisions in life, and whether other people will be hurt by those decisions. If Joe had considered the lives of strangers in making his decision about the defective airplane parts, then he would not have sold the parts and he would have saved the life of his own son. Obviously, a person has to make decisions in life which will inevitably hurt others, but Miller's point is that we are all interconnected and owe one another consideration with respect to decisions which affect more than just ourselves.
The decision of Joe to sell the defective airplane parts is an obviously immoral one, with clearly terrible consequences, beyond even what Joe might have imagined. Certainly he had to consider if only for a moment that people could die as a result of his decision, even if he could not have possibly imagined that his own son would die as an indirect result.
However, sometimes the decisions and actions of an individual are immoral in less apparent ways. For example, how could a sensitive individual say that Kate Keller, the mother, is immoral in clinging to the hope that her son is still alive? Is it not a sign of love to keep the memory of a loved one alive, especially that of a beloved child, whether or not he is actually still alive in the flesh?
Here is where the issue of morality becomes complicated and difficult. Yes, obviously, it is a good and moral act for a mother to continue to keep her son's memory alive and to hope he lives himself, but what if her actions and attitudes keep her from moving on with her life and, worse, keep another son from living his life?
At this point in the play, it would seem that Kate is behaving immorally, because she believes she is acting out of love for her missing son, when in fact she is ignoring the...