You want to make sure that your goodness is not dependent on the goodness of others. Only when it is independent can you trust it. It should also not be dependent on thoughts about whether other beings deserve your goodwill or not.

"The third lesson that kamma teaches about goodwill [mettā] concerns the reasons for why you need it. Its function is to guarantee the skillfulness of your actions. You want to make sure that your goodness is not dependent on the goodness of others. Only when it is independent can you trust it. It should also not be dependent on thoughts about whether other beings deserve your goodwill or not. It depends more on the fact that you need your goodwill, to protect yourself from doing unskillful things. This is why the Buddha talks about goodwill as a kind of restraint. We usually think of goodwill as something open and wide, without limits, but it does place certain restraints on what we do, say, and think, so that we don’t do unskillful things that will harm ourselves or others."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections"

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