Dependent Rational Animals

First of all it seems like the happening place to be on a Sunday night before finals week is at the library! I just got back from studying for my philosophy final which is on Tuesday with a guy who is a philosophy minor like myself. For our in class part of the final we get to choose 1 out of 4 essays to write on. All of the essays are from a book called "Dependent Rational Animals" by Alasdair Macintyre. Which is actually an interesting book. If I had the time I would have liked to read deeper into it. The main idea can be summed up in a quote from the book:
"So philosophical theories about what it is that distinguishers members of our own species from other animal species - it has been alleged by some theorists, as we shall see, that nonhuman animals cannot have thoughts, beliefs or reasons for action - may seem to provide grounds for the belief that our rationality as thinking beings is somehow independent of our animality." This is an idea that Macintyre refutes throughout his book.
If you're at all interested click on the link above :)
We were told a once over reading of the book would be sufficient to answer the essay questions.
Yeah right! After 3 hours of studying and struggling through the concepts for 1 essay question we finally finished studying for the night. That was only for 1 essay! And believe me we had to read through parts again and again to finally understand what the heck was being asked of us!
At least that part of it is done though. I still have to write a paper for it as well, but I'll focus on that later.
Once I've actually figured out the concepts though I always feel a sense of accomplishment. I get this false sense of intellectuality (is that actually a word??)