I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rational than you think you are. You are irrational in a minor way - believing a misguided theory of the nature of rationality - but rational in a major way - you respond well to probabilistic evidence as you go through the day.

Moral virtues and intellectual virtues are very different from each other, and moral virtue has to do with motivation, not cognition. Moral virtue requires a human level of intelligence, but it doesn't require that one be an intelligent human.

I think it's ok to have wishes that conflict with each other - it's irrational to try to make them both come true, but not irrational simply to have them.

I don't think any of my desires or beliefs or other mental states are external to me. Many people will occasionally feel alienated from the motives for an action - "whatever possessed me to do that?". Note, however, that some people feel alienated from the white hairs that recently appeared on their heads - "who put them there?", they might ask the mirror - but the white hairs are still theirs. Similarly, I might feel alienated from an action or a mental state because it does not fit with my visceral self - image.

I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rational than you think you are. You are irrational in a minor way - believing a misguided theory of the nature of rationality - but rational in a major way - you respond well to probabilistic evidence as you go through the day.

Sometimes I suspect that there are two prototypes of philosophers who write about humans - I call them "celestials" and "terrestrials", without implying that celestials have their heads in the clouds or that terrestrials have theirs buried in the ground. The difference between these two types is not so much in their theories but in whether or not they would find it a very sad thing if it turned out that the only way a human is superior to a wolf is this: the human brain is significantly more capacious and complex.

Virtue is about wanting right and good things, not about being particularly good at thinking.