If I punch you in the face and then
    apologize to 10 other people for
    hitting you, it doesn't make me a
    good person nor have I in any way
    made up for wronging you.

If you punch me in the face and then apologize to me, your apologizing isn't enough to make you a good person or make up for punching me. So say instead you punch me in the face, and then dive into the river and save someone from drowning. While rescuing them doesn't make it up to me, it's still enough of a good thing that "gnaritas punches cbr in the face and saves X from drowning" is better than "gnaritas does nothing".

But maybe we're just getting into the semantics of what it means to "make up for" or "excuse" wrongs.