I would like to use the expression "raison d'etre" in my writing. What I would like to express is a lack of thinking or mental activity when someone doesn't question a process — they just follow it. They do not look for the essence of the activity (why was it created? how can it help? etc). This attitude can be positive or negative; in my case it is positive.
What I wrote is
They do not question the raison d'etre of the process, they just follow it.
I don't know whether this is correct, and whether it means what I want to say.
Best Answer
"raison d'etre" doesn't fit very well here. While the literal translation into English is "reason to be," when English speakers start using French phrases, it's usually because we're trying to express something more than the literal translation. Otherwise we'd just speak English.
It's most commonly used to refer to someone's primary purpose in life: the thing that matters most to them.
While it can be used in other contexts, in a lot of cases it will just come across as gratuitous French.
Here are some phrases that I think express what you want: