[Haskell] Applying Functors

[Johan Glimming]

Folks,

I wonder if there is any particular reason for not having a class for 
object map of a functor (Functor-instances) in addition to the arrow 
map (fmap). Now you may say that this is just the constructor, but in 
my current example I have found it useful to have a general way of 
taking an object/value a into F a since the constructor can be 
arbitrary. I thought that I may need the return-operator in class 
Monad. I call it flift:

   class Lift f where
      flift :: a -> f a

This works nicely for trivial datatypes like "data Unit a = Unit" and 
"data Id a = Id a":

   instance Lift Unit where
      flift a = Unit

   instance Lift Id where
      flift a = Id a

My question is --- how would you define Lift for constructors such as 
data Sum a = Inl a|Inr a and so forth?

Best Wishes,
Johan Glimming