I believe in the superiority of humans (and other hypothetical sapient species) over non-sapient species. There is no need to "balance things out".
Well see, there's your problem. Cruelty is inherent in such a viewpoint. Hopefully one day you realise that!
I know that. And I don't care that I am supporting cruelty. I have very little empathy for cows, pigs, sheep, and other farm animals. Why should I, when they are non-sapient, not endangered, and their sole purpose in life is to provide food (or wool)?
Also I enjoy the taste of meat, which, for me, is enough of a reason to continue to eat it.
Indeed.
If sapience is your benchmark here, what are your thoughts on the mentally disabled?
Choosing by sapience is not
not viable, true.
How about this:
Harm needs to be within reason. In the end, one prefers oneself over strangers and one's own species over other species. But even then, any harm done should have a reason to be done.
How much reason one needs would depend on each person's conscience, but generaly, the more distant the species the less reason there usualy needs to be.
Most people would not be surprised at someone casualy killing spiders. But kick a dog and everyone is outraged. This is because spiders are alien enough for people to not care.
You can harm animals, but you should only do so, if you are gaining something by doing so. The closer they are related to humans, the more you should be gaining from it. If the animal is human, you should be gaining equal or greater value to what harm you are willing to cause.
Note that this is not intended to promote crime. If you do something, you create a precedens. For example, you would not want to steal, because you do not want people to steal from you. So regardless of laws, you should not do anything, you do not want other people to do in your situation.
Laws of course decrease value of criminal behavior further by punishing those caught.