The Four Cardinal Principles and Eight Virtues are a set of Legalist (and later Confucian) foundational principles of morality. The Four Cardinal Principles are propriety (禮), righteousness (義), integrity (廉), and shame (恥). The Eight Virtues are loyalty (忠), filial piety (孝), benevolence (仁), love (愛), honesty (信), justice (義), harmony (和), and peace (平).

The Four Cardinal Principles are also referred to as the fundamental principles of conduct, or four social bonds. They are derived from the Legalist text Guanzi, attributed to the Qi philosopher Guan Zhong, although it is unlikely he was the actual author. The Four Cardinal Principles can be understood as the following:

In some renderings of the principles, the concept of chi is replaced with honour (耻).

In a speech in 1934, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek invoked the importance of the four principles as a guide for the New Life Movement. The movement was an attempt to reintroduce Confucian principles into everyday life in China as a means to create national unity and act as a bulwark against communism.

The four pockets on a Sun Yat-sen-style suit jacket are said to represent these four principles.

The Eight Virtues were taken from a speech made by the late Chinese Nationalist statesman Dr Sun Yat-sen, founding president of the ROC, as he was outlining his Three Principles of the People.

The influence of the Eight Virtues is particularly obvious in Taiwan, where many major streets in larger cities are named for them.