We investigate the possibility of deriving metric trace semantics in a
coalgebraic framework. First, we generalize a technique for systematically
lifting functors from the category Set of sets to the category PMet of
pseudometric spaces, showing under which conditions also natural
transformations, monads and distributive laws can be lifted. By exploiting some
recent work on an abstract determinization, these results enable the derivation
of trace metrics starting from coalgebras in Set. More precisely, for a
coalgebra on Set we determinize it, thus obtaining a coalgebra in the
Eilenberg-Moore category of a monad. When the monad can be lifted to PMet, we
can equip the final coalgebra with a behavioral distance. The trace distance
between two states of the original coalgebra is the distance between their
images in the determinized coalgebra through the unit of the monad. We show how
our framework applies to nondeterministic automata and probabilistic automata