Iris Murdoch can be said a philosophical novelist. This is because many of her novels are based on her moral philosophy. Her philosophical speculation centers on the Good which Plato mentioned as the Idea of ideas. Though the Good is the central theme of her philosophy, Murdoch does not define what the Good is. She just asserts that human beings dwelling on the phenomenal world cannot reach or achieve the Good which lies in the ideal world. She puts away the task of defining the Good by referring to it as "something undefinable" and "something beyond human beings." About the Evil which is the opposite extreme of the Good, she does not define what it is, either. Instead, what she is trying to do is to show how the Good and the Evil are reflected in the phenomenal world. In this respect, her approach to the Good is not noumenal but phenomenal. In A Fairly Honorable Defeat, Murdoch shows how the Good and the Evil are reflected in the human world, and why the human effort to reach the Good inevitably fails. Through Tallis Browne and Julius King we can see what Murdoch considers as the characteristics of the Good and the Evil. In this work, Julius King represents the Evil. He is described as a demonic figure because he is a rational cynicist and pursues power and magic. With these power and magic, he spreads suffering around. Tallis Browne is the incarnation of the Good. He does not seek power, nor magic. And he never transfers his suffering to others; rather he transforms it into love. This amounts to what Murdoch regards as the qualities of the Good. In the battle between the Good and the Evil, the Good is defeated by the Evil. This is not because the Good is incompetent to cope with the Evil but because human beings whom the Good tries to save from the Evil are egocentric and could not perceive the Good. Somewhere in her philosophical writings Murdoch warns that the solipsism of human beings is the greatest obstacle for human beings to reach the Good. A Fairly honorable Defeat is an attempt to convey this idea through a novelistic form, and in this respect Murdoch is a philosophical novelist.