ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine the work of Martha Nussbaum and in particular the relations between feminism, universals and learning. Nussbaum comes from a liberal feminist tradition, and for her, this means endorsing a realist ontology, the possibility of social, political, ethical and epistemological universals and a social justice framework. Martha Nussbaum's liberal theory of justice rests on the possibility of there being such things as universals. In her book, Sex and Social Justice, she sets out her sense of universal capacities and she calls them central human functional capabilities. She rejects utterly the collective work of many writers who would understand themselves and have been understood as postmodernist, such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard and Friedrich Nietzsche. For her relativism is a blind alley that does not allow us any purchase on feminism, learning and the curriculum, in an epistemological and ethical sense.
